Shioni of Sheba

The Enchanted Castle

By Marc Secchia

Text and images copyright © 2013 onward Marc Secchia, 2nd Edition September 2013

Illustrated by Senait Worku from Addis Ababa

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher and author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

www.marcsecchia.com

Table of Contents

Shioni of Sheba

Table of Contents

Map of West Sheba

Glossary

Chapter 1: A Strange Encounter

Chapter 2: Black Magic Castle

Chapter 3: Hearing Things

Chapter 4: Warriors at Play

Chapter 5: Feeding Lions

Chapter 6: Mama Nomuula Speaks

Chapter 7: Well, Well…

Chapter 8: A Night-Time Stroll

Chapter 9: Buildings and Births

Chapter 10: Famous, What?

Chapter 11: The Captain’s Coffee

Chapter 12: A Different Lesson

Chapter 13: The King’s Horse

Chapter 14: A Rip-Roaring Adventure

Chapter 15: What Kind of a Friend are You?

Chapter 16: Reading the Scrolls

Chapter 17: Mama Makes a Plan

Chapter 18: A Trunkful of Advice

Chapter 19: Snaky, Snaky on the Wall

Chapter 20: Disobeying The King

Chapter 21: Finding the Wasabi

Chapter 22: Kalcha Reveals Her Plans

Chapter 23: Trouble on the Horizon

Chapter 24: Punishment

Chapter 25: The Curse on the Castle

Chapter 26: The Power is in the Eyes

Chapter 27: The General Tells a Story

Chapter 28: The Enchanted Castle

About the Author

Preview of Shioni of Sheba: The King’s Horse

Map of West Sheba

Princess Annakiya’s hand-drawn map of the Kingdom of West Sheba.

Glossary

Arogit–Old woman, female village elder

Asmat–Black or evil magic

Asmati–Small, trouble-making creatures, bring bad luck

Ferengi–Stranger or alien in the land, a white-skinned person, sometimes derogatory

Firfir–A mix of injera and sauce cooked together

Gashe–An honorific meaning ‘Lord’

Hakim–Title of a wise or learned person, means ‘doctor’

Hiwot–Life

Injera–A slightly fermented large pancake made from tef (Ethiopian grain) used to scoop up spicy vegetable or meat sauces with the fingers

Jebena–Traditional long-necked clay vessel with a handle, used for brewing coffee

Kebero–Very large cowhide drum used in religious worship

Kolo–Dried, slightly spiced grain for snacking on, often combined with peanuts

Shuruba–Ethiopian style of braiding the hair close to the scalp in pretty designs

Shemagele–Old man, male village elder

Chapter 1: A Strange Encounter

“IF YOU DON’T LEARN to get your nose out of a scroll,” Shioni teased her best friend, Princess Annakiya, “you’ll ride smack into a tree one day.”

“What?”

“Then the scroll will snap shut with your nose still stuck inside.”

Annakiya chuckled. “You’re the one who taught me to ride with just my knees.”

Resting the heavy scroll on her lap, the Princess squinted into the distance. She mopped her forehead. Though it was only the third hour, the sky was white-blue and heat shimmered off the forested hills. “Why are they keeping us here? This dry season heat is killing me.” Even the warriors were pacing about like leopards, chafing at the delay. She added, “You’re such a good rider, Shioni. I envy you.”

She envied her slave-girl? Touching the silver band encircling her neck, Shioni sighed in her heart. It was a simple piece of metal, but it said so much. The necklet was stamped with the symbol of the Lion of Sheba, and letters that proclaimed, ‘Property of Sheba’. The King had bought her for his only daughter’s fifth birthday, for one talent of pure silver. A sum that drew gasps of jealousy like flies to rotting meat, she had discovered. Yes, every last slave in the King’s household knew her story, and they didn’t let her forget it for a second. Calls of, ‘Ferengi! Ferengi!’ had followed her all her life. It meant ‘stranger’–someone other, different, someone to be teased and taunted.

Shioni had never met anyone like herself. Annakiya’s owl-like and very severe tutor, Hakim Isoke, said that was because she came from down the great Nile River and across the Middle Sea, from another land where everyone had yellow hair like her. Isoke had also pointed out that a slave-girl’s proper place was at her mistress’ feet, not riding a horse or shooting a recurve bow like one of the warriors.

“I’m sorry, that was a foolish thing to say,” Annakiya said softly, looking so wretched that Shioni smiled at her even though she didn’t feel like smiling. The Princess folded down her bright orange umbrella. “Come on. Father says this trip is ‘for my education’. In that case, I had better take an interest.”

After a moment, Shioni touched her bare heels to her wiry mountain-pony’s flanks and shadowed the Princess past the powerful elephants dragging the tall carts of supplies; past Mama Nomuula, the hugely fat and lovely head cook, whose hugs were like being enveloped in one of her famous soft honeyed sweets; past the armoured cavalry and the ranks of muscular warriors guarding hundreds of male slaves, chained ankle to ankle in sweating, silent rows; past the gaudy litters of the nobles and bejewelled women of the King’s household, with their accompanying slaves holding aloft gaily-coloured umbrellas against the fierce sun, or fanning them with large ostrich-feather fans, towards the head of the great column of Shebans.

Annakiya had explained that her father, the King of West Sheba, planned to repair a fortress in the foothills of the dark, jag-toothed Simiens, a volcanic mountain range which dwarfed the land west of the Takazze River. The Wasabi, murderous mountain warriors, regularly swooped down from the heights to plunder the river peoples’ villages and farms. ‘Asmat Castle,’ Shioni mouthed the name. Black magic castle? She wouldn’t have chosen it for her fortress, not with a name like that!

“–a bunch of pretty chickens sitting here while you clever warriors argue!” Captain Dabir was waving his arms, red-faced as usual. “Where’s the tracker?”

“Sick in one of the wagons, sir.”

“Looks like hyena spoor to me, sir.”

“Then where’s the carcass? You idiot! We’ve buckets of blood on the trail and I am surrounded by fools–”

Annakiya rolled her eyes as the warriors argued back and forth. “You go take a look, Shioni.”

A puff of rust-coloured clay dust sprang up as her toes struck the ground. Shioni quickly scouted the scene, trying to shut out the argument behind her. She knelt to measure a lion’s spoor with outspread fingers and shook her head in disbelief. What a monster! And… hyenas? Hyenas attacking a fully-grown lion? The Captain was right, with this amount of blood you’d expect a carcass… where had the lion gone?

After casting about for a few minutes, Shioni noticed a few tawny hairs on a boulder. Nearby, a civet cat had crossed the lion’s trail and bolted upon smelling the larger cat. Then, a couple of paces on, she spotted several drops of blood smeared on a patch of sharp-bladed grass. She tracked the lion’s path steadily into a narrow defile. It ended in a low overhang. She knelt to look beneath the slab of rock, and caught an unmistakable whiff of dank air. It was a cave–the lion’s lair.

Shioni narrowed her eyes, trying to penetrate the darkness. The cave was deep. The smell told her that. But how deep was the lion? She had no desire to stumble across a wounded lion.

As she knelt in the cave entrance, a clear picture popped into her mind: pain radiating from a place near the centre of a chest. The lion’s chest? As quickly as that picture appeared a second replaced it: now she was inside a dimly-lit cavern, laying low, licking numerous wounds with a rasping tongue, before collapsing on a sandy floor. A sense of doom accompanied these pictures, a feeling so powerful that every hair on the back of her neck stood to attention. Shioni recoiled.

What? She put the back of her hand to her forehead. A touch too much sun? She chided herself under her breath. She was neither one to feel premonitions, nor the kind of girl to take a silly turn when she was doing serious work!

But then, without being bidden, another burst of pictures entered her mind: a huge lion snarling at several hyenas across a short space, a dark-robed hunter loosing an arrow, and again a pain that pierced the chest so sharply that her hand instinctively flew to her breastbone. She caught her breath. The sense that the picture had come to her mind from somewhere else was overwhelming. It was the only thing she was certain about.

From the lion? No, that was ridiculous. Surely an overactive imagination…

“Girl! Ferengi!” Captain Dabir’s angry shout broke her concentration. “Where’s that blasted slave-girl?”

No doubt he wanted to advance. According to a scout she had spoken to, at the column’s snail-like pace they still had a full day’s travel up to Ginab Village, and from there a further three hours’ climb to the castle. She cast the cave a dark glance. Silly pictures in broad daylight? Madness.

Shioni trotted back, and knelt before his scuffed boots. “Sir.”

“What have you found?”

She was used to people talking down to her. But Captain Dabir twisted his words more than most. She swallowed. “Around the first hour this morning, a large male lion was attacked here by about five or six hyenas, sir.”

Hoots of laughter from the warriors made a flock of watching ravens take off with raucous croaks and a clatter of wings.

“Go on, slave,” sneered the Captain. “Did you imagine a dragon too?”

“The lion may have been wounded already, sir,” she replied. “The right foreleg spoor is lighter than the others. The hyenas attacked there and there, next to the split acacia tree. They were large beasts, bigger than a red wolf. The lion was rolled over–”

“Are you sure they weren’t giant apes?”

“Apes walk on their knuckles, sir. Their spoor is different. These were very large hyenas, hunting in a pack.”

She could almost feel the heat emanating from the Captain at her bland response. Finally he growled, “And where is the lion now?”

Shioni turned to point with her chin. “About a hundred yards back, Captain, behind that clump of boulders, is a gully leading to a cave. The lion has gone there to lick its wounds.”

“Let’s kill it!” shouted one of the warriors, waving his spear. His cry was quickly joined by several others. The Captain waved them on. “Go.”

Shioni could not stop herself. “No! It’s wounded…”

Captain Dabir’s shadow loomed over her, clenching its fists. “What? What did you say?”

Shioni was wishing the dust would swallow her up, or that she rather could have swallowed her rash tongue. “I, er… sir–”

“Speak up!”

She cleared her throat. “There’s no honour in killing a wounded animal, sir.”

“Honour?” he exploded. “Who by Erta’s sulphurous pits do you think you are to lecture me about honour? You are a slave! A filthy, impudent–”

“Stand down, Captain!” ordered Princess Annakiya. Shioni had always thought her a bit of a mouse, but she felt absurdly grateful for her intervention now. “There is no honour, as she said.”

A hostile silence lengthened.

“What else?” a gruff voice broke in. “We need to move on before our pretty nobles faint in the heat.”

This voice belonged to General Getu. Shioni knew him by sight. A grizzled veteran, his left arm was missing below the elbow, and the whole left side of his face had once been terribly burned. But he never spoke about what had happened. Even Mama Nomuula, who loved to tell a tall tale as much as monkeys love to make mischief, knew no more than the usual rumour that Getu had fought off a lion–or a dragon. Everyone said General Getu was like a tough, gnarled old root, and the harshest of the warriors. No-one crossed him.

“I also found the tracks of two horses, gashe,” Shioni said, using the customary word of respect for an elder leader. ‘My Lord’ suited him well. “Iron-shoed, the mountain breed. They made for those peaks. Whoever it was, they were here either during or just after the attack, my Lord.”

“Thank you for your report, girl.” Getu eyed the distant peaks rather ferociously, as though he intended to storm them with his warriors, taking no prisoners. He sniffed the parched, thirsty air like a wolf, taking in the rich clay-dust, the pungent, fiery tang of pepper trees, and a hint of sweet anise. “Danger on the wind,” he murmured, so softly that only Shioni could have heard him. “Vague, far away…”

“My Lord, shall we proceed?”

Shioni risked a glance at Captain Dabir, surprised at his interruption. His mouth was set in a thin line. If his eyes could have spit fire, she would have been burned up. She knew at once he meant to have his revenge.

“Captain Dabir,” ordered the General, suddenly brusque and in charge. “Leave the lion. Warn our scouts to look out for lions and hostile riders, and gather their reports. Take fifty men ahead to the village. Check the food supply arrangements are in place. Talk to their hunters. If a mouse moves in this valley I want to know it. Clear?”

“My Lord!”

After the Captain had departed, shouting at his warriors to form up behind him, General Getu rounded on Princess Annakiya. “Teach your slave her place, your Highness, or I will teach her for you. And don’t you presume to command my men when you are hardly more than a child yourself! Now, go back to the women, where you belong!”

The General wheeled his horse about, bellowing, “Move out!”

“Beastly, cruel man!” sniffed Annakiya.

“Who, the General?”

“You silly mongoose, no!” Annakiya laughed at Shioni’s gasp of horror. “Mama likes to say: ‘The General may be as tough as the skin of an elephant’s knee, but his heart is true.’ I meant the Captain, of course! He reminds me of nothing more than an overgrown, flea-bitten, selfish rat!”

If a rat, a very dangerous one, Shioni told herself. She should be on her guard.

Chapter 2: Black Magic Castle

WHILE THE JOURNEY UP to Castle Asmat proceeded smoothly, Shioni found herself unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong. She rubbed her breastbone as if it was her who had been pierced by an arrow, not the lion. The spot hurt. Although it was on the tip of her tongue to tell Princess Annakiya about the incident, she decided the certain embarrassment was not worth it.

‘Childish fears, Shioni!’ she admonished herself, patting down the Princess’ bedroll in their tent encampment outside Ginab Village that evening. And the following morning, laying out Annakiya’s outfit for the day, she muttered, ‘The lion’s dead. Forget about it. You are the Princess of West Sheba’s bodyguard, not some shrinking little mouse.’

Annakiya glanced up from the scroll she was writing. “Are you talking to yourself again?”

“Just doing my duties, my Lady,” said Shioni.

“You’s missed a spot right there, my girl,” Annakiya teased, imitating Mama Nomuula’s broad tones.

Shioni’s answering grin faded slightly as she saw Captain Dabir stride by their tent, bellowing his orders for the morning. Some people, like Dabir, treated her as ferengi filth. But Mama was lovely and the Princess was more than she could ever have asked for in an owner. Being best friends with her owner was enough to make her head spin like a dust-devil out in the Danakil Desert. People didn’t mean to be nasty when they called her ‘ferengi’, did they? Dabir was definitely malicious. But the little village boys? When they saw her their eyes had fairly popped out of their heads, like a snail’s eyes on stalks. They had no idea.

Still, she wished the word had never existed.

From Ginab Village the trail was a steep ascent that had the horses and elephants blowing hard. Switchback after switchback raised them high above the river plains they had left behind–the plains familiar to the Shebans, who were sometimes called the River People. Leaving Takazze, the royal city which lay on the banks of the Takazze River, Shioni remembered looking ahead to the dark, brooding mountains, rank upon rank of peaks filling the horizon in stark splendour, and wondering what adventures might await her up in that wilderness.

She rubbed her chest. Stinking hyenas, that spot was still bothering her!

What Shioni had taken for a ridge turned out to be the foot of a long green valley that struck westward into the Simien Mountains. After pressing through a stretch of sparse coniferous woods, the Sheban column came to the banks of a clear, fast-flowing river and turned to follow a trail the scouts had marked for them. A scattering of birds disturbed by the column marked their progress–wattled ibis and crowned cranes and more varieties of finches and bee-eaters than she could count.

General Getu, riding alongside the Princess during the morning to instruct her in the strategies of mountain warfare, noted, “That’s a boon, Princess. Look–even in the middle of dry season, there’s a clean flow and plenty of it.”

“It’s looking very inviting.”

Shioni felt a chuckle escape her at the wistful note in Annakiya’s voice. General Getu cast her a sharp glance over his shoulder. “Not unless your slave-girl can look after you in the water, Princess.”

“Thankfully she’s half fish.”

“Oh?”

“I had her teaching the slaves in Takazze. And me. I can manage now, General, without sinking.”

Getu growled, “You tell your slave-girl that if there’s the merest whiff of trouble, I will personally see to it that her guts are turned into bowstrings!” But he added, more respectfully, “With your permission, Princess, I would like to add weapons training with the Elite warriors to her schedule. Every morning, several hours.”

It had been on the tip of Shioni’s tongue to thank Annakiya for her stout support. But now she had something else to chew upon. Her training in Takazze had been with gentle tutors afraid of hurting the Princess. But these veteran Elites, Sheba’s finest–they would carve her up for breakfast and spit out the bones.

Annakiya nodded. “It would be beneficial. If she can fit her other duties around it, General.”

“Agreed. Remember, she’s your last line of defence. Takazze is another world. Up in these mountains we’re fighting the Wasabi and their witch-leader, Kalcha. I do not doubt our King, my Lady… but I’ve learned to listen to my instincts. A little preparation could not hurt.”

Shioni wondered suddenly if the King had been overconfident in moving half of his court up to Castle Asmat. If the danger was so immediate… and the experienced General was, in no uncertain terms, warning the Princess…

“Who will she train with?”

“The younger warriors.” Getu turned to pin Shioni with his one-eyed stare. “Hand-picked for the Elite ranks. They like to play rough, girl. Be warned.”

Generals clearly took lessons in snarling from lions, Shioni thought. Why did Getu dislike her so? Every time he spoke to her–which was not often, thankfully–it was with a tone of barely veiled anger she felt she didn’t deserve. It wasn’t only that she had insulted one of his Captains… he had been this way since she could remember. Why, o why, had she not held her tongue?

How much more exciting would this trip become? She smiled wryly.

Just look at those nobles craning their necks to take in the tall cliffs that frowned over the valley! Anyone would think they were riding out for a feast or a celebration, judging by their constant chattering and laughter. Huge, black basalt cliffs paralleled their route to either side. She imagined them leaning over like two bullies to squeeze the pretty valley between, with its reed-fringed, babbling river, huge stands of juniper trees, and abundant bird life. The grassy parts were surprisingly green. Did it rain more here in the mountains?

The Shebans crawled along beneath the cliffs like a slow-moving column of army ants. But sooner than Shioni would have imagined, General Getu pointed ahead of them. “Castle Asmat, Princess.”

Shioni saw a reddish, blocky building standing toward the northern cliffs of the valley on a low rise above the river. A wide, roughly circular ring around it marked the wrecked remains of a once-mighty defensive wall. Only a few small sections still stood upright. And right in the middle of the castle, above the keep itself, she noticed a giant, spreading baobab tree standing like a man with his bare arms raised to the heavens.

“It’s a ruin,” said Annakiya.

“I’m told the inner keep is basically sound,” said the General. “But the outer defensive wall will require a complete rebuild–hence the slaves and elephants, for the King wants a fortress which can withstand all the might of the Wasabi. If you would excuse me, Princess, I need to see to arrangements for our camp.”

Before early afternoon, the Shebans had swarmed over the castle like bees taking over a hive. Shioni was set to scrubbing out and preparing a room for the Princess, while Mama Nomuula took command of the kitchens, which were situated in the best-preserved part of the inner keep. Outside, it was mayhem. Shioni could hear General Getu and his Captains marching about, rapping out orders and making their plans.

Carpenters and stonemasons had been sent up to the castle ahead of the King. Shioni helped position a bed and a desk for the Princess and a small wooden chest for her valuables. Annakiya’s fine brass mirror and dressing table arrived, having been carted all the way up from Takazze. She was startled by the appearance of a pallet meant for her. This went at the foot of the Princess’ bed. Then she moved over to help prepare the King’s chamber while several other slave-girls hung curtains over the royal bed and positioned a plush-looking rush mattress. Creature comforts for the royal personage. Shioni smiled. She would enjoy no such pampering!

After that Shioni was summoned to the kitchens to help Mama serve the evening meal. Afterward she helped clean up and tried to make some sense of the unpacking, which occupied her and a dozen other slave-girls until even the night birds were too sleepy to sing.

She hardly even remembered lying down on her pallet. But she dreamed all night long that the lion was calling to her.

The first word out of her mouth come morning was, “Ridiculous!”

Chapter 3: Hearing Things

FOR SHIONI HER FIRST few days in Castle Asmat passed in a blur of dawn-to-dusk activity, but soon settled into a more regular routine. She would rouse briefly toward midnight to find the royal scroll-muncher’s head slumped on a scroll and her lamp or candle burned out. Annakiya and her love of reading! She made sure the linens and covering furs were tucked up to her friend’s chin, and then settled down to try to catch as many winks as were left of the night.

Waking properly at the eleventh hour each morning–not long before dawn–she pulled on her linen tunic and leggings, shivering in the pre-dawn cold, before grabbing her weapons and joining the warriors in their stamping, breath-steaming run down-valley for half an hour. There the Elite warriors trained at knives or staves or archery, alone and in teams, and staged mock battles and ambushes with blunted training swords and shields, before running back to the castle ready for a full day’s hauling lumber or rocks or supervising the male slaves at work.

Having laid out the Princess’ outfit for the day, Shioni prepared a breakfast of thick anise bread with honey, or often tasty firfir, one of Mama’s sauces mixed with a slightly sour bread called injera.

Her Highness usually woke between the second and third hours of the morning and took a leisurely breakfast. But her fourth breakfast was different.

Shioni, bone-tired and trying her best not to drag her feet after three hours either spent running or being taught–with many bruises–how little she knew about stave fighting, was returning from the kitchen with a bowl of firfir for Annakiya and a small gourd of water when she heard the Princess scream.

“Annakiya!” she gasped. Shioni fumbled for her long dagger as she dashed past the King’s doorway to Annakiya’s room, dropping the food en route–but what did that matter? Blade in hand she pounced into the room like a lioness, prepared for anything… except for the sight of the Princess of West Sheba standing in the middle of her bed doing a strange dance as she frantically slapped at her nightclothes.

Shioni blurted out, “What are you doing?”

“Ants! Army ants, you silly mongoose!”

“Oh. Oh! Quickly!”

Her friend was too busy wailing and dancing to care for her outstretched hand. Shioni leaped up onto the bed, which was crawling with army ants, and yanked her friend off of it and out into the corridor. She fell to brushing down Annakiya’s clothes. There were black ants as long as the first joint of her thumb everywhere–up her back, in her hair, even one hanging off her lower lip. Breaking an ant’s body did not stop the head from biting, nor did it seem that a single slap would necessarily kill them.

“Annakiya! My poor pet!” cried Mama Nomuula, storming down the corridor without a care for the warriors, or the King, who stood in her path. The King sidestepped smartly into his doorway. The juggernaut that was Mama in motion bounced two warriors right off their feet. “You’s not been bitten by a snake?”

“Army ants,” said Shioni.

“Thank God!” said the King. “This castle is overrun with snakes. Ants we can handle. Mama?”

“My little bushbuck, you’s alright now,” said Mama, holding Annakiya to her bosom as the Princess began to sob. “You’s gonna be all fine.”

Looking past Mama, Shioni saw the King’s face harden at the sight of his daughter’s tears. “Clear out those ants!” he snapped. “I don’t want another scene like this!”

Mama’s eyes flashed darkly, but she said in a perfectly mild tone, “I’s a-putting some girls on it at once, o King.”

“Good.”

Shioni and Mama used their fingernails to carefully pinch the ant heads off Annakiya’s skin, making sure that no mandibles were left behind to start an infection. Then Mama fetched a gourd of green paste and proceeded to daub the Princess’ wounds until she resembled a piece of mildewed cloth and Shioni had a fit of the giggles that earned her a stern talking-to from her friend.

Hakim Isoke appeared for the Princess’ lessons and dismissed Shioni with a sniff: “My latrine bucket was not emptied this morning. Make sure you empty all the rest too, slave-girl.”

Ugh!

Her day did not improve much either. Down at the rubbish midden, Shioni spied several more of the very large hyena tracks. She hunkered down to measure their size with her fingers. How large did hyenas grow in the mountains, she wondered? Were these hyena tracks or some kind of wolf? Even those must be gigantic…

She felt a foot shove her from behind.

Shioni sprawled headlong into a patch of rotting kitchen slops and came up spitting oily vegetable peels.

“Oops,” said Yeshi, one of the older slave-girls. “Mind you don’t slip!” And she flung the contents of her small barrel directly into Shioni’s lap.

She was too aghast to do more than gasp Yeshi’s name before the older girl darted away.

Shioni washed quickly in the river before returning to the kitchens to fetch Annakiya’s lunch. The Princess smelled her from the doorway and, with a sympathetic grimace, pressed a chunk of soapstone into her hand and ordered her back to the river.

Hakim Isoke clucked something about not diving into the latrine buckets.

Hyenas and lions. Lions and hyenas. It made no sense. Shioni puzzled over this all afternoon. Hyenas were not particularly stupid creatures–ugly, yes. Carrion eaters were not her favourite animals. But were they stupid enough to attack a mature male lion? She doubted that. So how should she interpret those tracks by the cave? And her strange feelings?

It was not like she could return to the cave to investigate… could she?

Toward nightfall she heard the hyenas down by the midden and restrained an urge to go take a look. ‘Oh, mister hyena, could I just measure your paw?’ she chuckled to herself. ‘Oh, little miss slave-girl, I see you brought us dinner–yourself!’

But Shioni dreamed about being chased by lions and hyenas all night long. At one point she actually woke up sobbing for the lion, having dreamed he was sick to death in that dank cave and crying to her for help. She lay awake for ages before she could fall asleep. Shioni woke with the dawn feeling as though she could toss a stone at any birds that dared sing.

“For an animal lover, that’s a serious case of sore head!” she grumbled, closing Annakiya’s door softly behind her.

Shioni shuffled down the corridor and out into the courtyard, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Oh scabby vulture-heads, even the mouth-watering smell of Mama’s bread baking in the huge, domed clay ovens was doing nothing to lift her mood! But… talking to her might. Everyone loved Mama Nomuula. She could make words feel like hugs.

She noticed the kitchen cat–Mama had insisted on bringing her up from Takazze in a rush basket–walking proudly into the kitchen with a large dead rat delicately poised in her mouth. That would make Mama scream!

“Clever kitty!” she called, rushing over.

At the sound of her voice, the cat turned a disdainful amber-eyed glare upon her. “Rude child, who are you calling ‘kitty’?” Dumping the rat, the cat stalked off stiff-legged.

“Shioni!” Mama called. “You looks as pale as you’s spoken to a ghost. Come in, girl.”

“Mama…” She shook her head rather violently. “Mama, did you just hear that cat speak?”

Mama smoothed Shioni’s hair fondly. “What you prattling about, my pet? Cats don’t talk. You’s still dreaming. What’s eating you is how that Captain treated you the other day, right?”

“No, Mama.” She yawned again and stretched for the ceiling. The cat had… no. Impossible! She must have been dreaming on her feet. “The kitchen’s taking shape now.”

“It’ll do, for a time. Bread? It’s fresh and hot! No training today?”

“They’re all out on patrol.”

Shioni gnawed on a hunk of dense oven-bread, thoughtfully. Mama, never one to be fooled, kept casting her glances even as she kneaded a mound of dough with her huge, expert hands. Finally, she felt compelled to explain what she had sensed outside the lion’s cave and how it had bothered her ever since.

“Ah,” said Mama, scratching the bridge of her nose with a doughy finger. “You’s always been a fine hand with animals, girl. You’s sure you not just… well, empathising with them?”

“Well… no, I’m not sure.”

She turned to look out of the door, but the cat was nowhere to be seen. Mama was right. As usual!

“Tell you what.” Mama handed her another hunk of bread. “While you’s filling that bottomless pit you calls a stomach, go see the elephant handler. He’s been a-jawing about one of his pets being off her work and all. You talk to them elephants and find what’s the matter, alright?”

A grin began to tug at the corners of her mouth. “Mama, you’re just humouring me. I know you.”

“You needs a change of scenery. No more swimming in rubbish heaps for you.”

And what escaped Mama’s notice in the castle would hardly fit on the head of a pin. “Mama, it wasn’t–”

“You’s still here? Shoo!”

A dawn of blazing colours was firing up the eastern sky, but the sun had not yet risen over the hills. Shioni walked resolutely down to the elephant pen. The Shebans had been at the castle just over five days, but with a workforce the size of a small army, much had been accomplished already. Their five elephants had a cool enclosure around a stand of trees, which they had already begun to strip for food. Elephants were stomachs on legs.

Maybe she could put her lunatic ideas to the test.

Not bothering to unlock the gate, Shioni climbed up and over the fence. She knew the elephants and they knew her.

“Good morning!”

The elephants turned to look at her. Nothing.

Shioni heaved a sigh of relief. There, that proved it. She was not going mad and she was no stranger than the next person. Apart from being a ferengi, of course. She liked it when people said she worked well with animals. But that was a far cry from hearing things!

She became aware of an odd itchiness in her mind. But it was too fleeting, impossible to catch, as though she was standing in a swarm of mosquitos and a few had bumped into her. The group of elephants, particularly the huge bull elephant, who was all of twelve feet in height, seemed to be staring at her expectantly.

“You all look hungry. Where are your keepers this morning?” Five trunks rose to sniff her outstretched hand. She chuckled. “I know you want salt, but we’re all out. Mama says there’s a shipment coming this week. Sorry.”

The bull elephant’s trunk curled around her shoulders. Although he was gentle enough, his enormous strength forced Shioni to shuffle forward. He looked her right in the eye. His eye was a light hazel brown, deeply set in a field of grey wrinkles that made him look a hundred years old. She had a very strong impression he was trying to communicate with her. When she tried to focus all her attention on him, the mosquito feeling returned and Shioni felt a sense of encouragement–although, it was very hard work. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. She staggered and caught the elephant’s trunk just in time.

“Wow.” She massaged her throbbing temples. “Much more of this and my head will split open like a melon. You couldn’t just tell me what you want?”

The elephant was bending his front legs, until his long ivory tusks dug into the dirt. He gazed intently at her. It was a gentle look, not threatening, but rather like a well of deep secrets drawing her in to new insights and avenues of understanding. Although she was intrigued, part of her still resisted. She also had a mad urge to poke him in the eye!

If she had any mental muscles, Shioni decided to try to flex them. At once the headache mushroomed until it was a solid band compressing her skull and streaks of light were shooting in front of her eyes. She sensed the bull elephant was frustrated at her reticence, a touch angry, and the prickling contact at the edge of her mind suddenly changed into a fist thumping on a door. Every knock reverberated through her whole being.

“Ouch, stop that!” She tried to push him away. “Look, I came here to find out what the problem is with one of you!”

The trunk uncoiled.

Shioni’s eyes popped wide open. “You understand…!”

A smaller trunk drew her aside now. It was one of the females, the one Shioni always thought of as the cutest and youngest of the elephants–although she was fully grown, she was dwarfed by the bull. She was making a deep, rumbling sound in her chest. Unlike the cat she had imagined speaking earlier, Shioni could not distinguish anything that made sense, until her intuition kicked in and she realised:

“You’re having a baby!” A trumpet squealed beside her ear. Shioni clapped her hands. “How exciting! No wonder you’re off your work.”

Leaping lizards, Annakiya would be delighted by this news! The General too. She could hear the sounds of the elephant handlers approaching now. They had probably been down to the river to wash. But Shioni became distracted by a different, random thought–a picture of a mushroom. No, a fungus.

She frowned. Her headache was roaring back, complete with teeth and claws this time. She could not continue like this. One more throb and her head would drop right off her shoulders.

“Trouble under your right front foot,” she realised slowly, and felt her knees crumple. Darkness rushed in from all sides.

Next she knew, someone was shouting, “Miss! Miss!” And slapping her cheek–hard.

“Ouch! I’m awake! Stop hitting me!”

“God bless ye, miss, I thought the elephants had attacked you!” Shioni sat up gingerly, feeling nauseous. “Easy now, miss. You took a funny turn.”

She muttered that the she-elephant was pregnant. The handler raised an eyebrow. “What? I didn’t know that.”

“And check her right front foot. It’s infected.”

He clucked at the elephant. “Come here, Beauty. Give us your foot. Hup, hup. On the stump.” The elephant responded to his tapping her knee by putting her foot up on a tree stump. He ducked under to take a look. “Nothing here. No, hold on.” He trimmed a bit with his belt-knife, dug around with the point for a minute, and then raised his head to cast Shioni a wary look. “How’d you know about that?”

She had just accused him of neither knowing nor doing his job, she realised. Shioni opened her mouth to apologise, but her stomach chose that moment to heave like a bucking donkey, and her entire breakfast shot out instead.

“Ugh, God!” The handler wiped his foot on the grass. “Aim somewhere else, miss, would you?”

“Sorry!”

Whirling on her heel, Shioni fled the elephant pen as though she had felt that lion breathing down her neck.

She knew one thing for certain. Mama was dead wrong.

Chapter 4: Warriors at Play

DESPITE HER ACHES AND pains, Shioni had to stifle a giggle as she paused in the doorway of the Princess’ bedchamber. Annakiya was sitting in front of her tall bronze-backed mirror, struggling to work a tortoiseshell comb through her long black curls. As her slim brown fingers fought with the tangle, she was grumbling: “Blasted knots,” or “rats’ nest” or “I swear I’ll chop off this bush, I will!” It was quite a battle.

Yesterday it had been talking cats and fainting in the elephant pen. Today, the warriors had taught her a painful lesson. Shioni sighed as she watched her friend. She should help. But her heart hurt even more than her body.

Even the Princess’ white cotton nightshirt was finer than her own rough-cut tunic and leggings. And once Annakiya worked the fragrant hair oil into her troublesome locks, they would tumble down her back like an ebony waterfall. Her own hair was tied in two places with worn leather thongs. Having never been cut, as was traditional for Sheban girls, it fell to her waist. But in comparison to the Princess’ glossy mane, hers looked like straw. Old straw.

Not only that, Shioni thought enviously, but Annakiya was petite and pretty too. She was smart–Hakim Isoke was always saying so, and she gave praise like a grudging miser counting out her last kernels of grain. Annakiya looked and moved and even smelled like a Princess ought to.

The contrast could not be starker. At half a head taller, Shioni felt she looked like a gangly, green-eyed giraffe–all long bony limbs but minus the amazing tongue that could strip the thorniest acacia branch of all its leaves in a second. Annakiya had a pet giraffe back in Takazze, but once it had grown too large, the King had made her donate it to the royal menagerie. But Annakiya still loved the animal and doted on it quite foolishly.

Green, the colour of her jealousy. The colour of a slave-girl’s thoughts towards her owner, which would have more than confirmed Hakim Isoke’s poor opinion of her. Anni, as she liked to nickname her friend, was often subjected to lectures on how to treat her servants, even while those same servants were listening. She always cringed and acted terribly awkward afterwards.

As Shioni limped into the room, her friend spied her in the mirror, gasped, and dropped the comb as though she had scalded her fingers. “You’re hurt! What happened?”

“Weapons practice happened,” Shioni said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You’re bleeding! Your eye! Look at your poor eye!”

At this moment Mama Nomuula came rushing up, which was rather like seeing an avalanche in motion. She swamped Shioni in a rib-bending hug. “Annakiya, what you let her do? By the holy cross–just look at your face!”

“Mama, please. I’m fine, honestly. You smell nice. Have you been baking?”

“And your knees!” She set Shioni down and, gripping her arms firmly, declared, “Them warriors, I’ll tan their backsides like they was snotty-nosed little boys for what they done!”

Annakiya broke in, “The warriors did this?”

“True as chickens lay eggs–I heard it all.” Mama’s face darkened like a thundercloud threatening to unleash a load of hail. “This here’s Captain Dabir’s work, or I’s a bald-headed old vulture. Honey, Shioni, now you just tell Mama Nomuula everything.”

“Well, I went down into the valley for training this morning,” Shioni started. The warriors were strangely cool towards her, she remembered. During the usual hour’s run, she had been tripped up not once, but three times. The first time was on grass–spindly, tan grass to be sure–but the next had sent her over a small boulder. After that, a big brute had taken keen pleasure in knocking her black and blue with his wooden staff. Wrestling training, for strength and agility, was even worse. After being winded by a punch to her chest during one particular clash, she began to struggle to her feet, whereupon the warrior kneed her in the face to finish her off. She had blacked out.

Shioni touched the cut on her cheek gingerly, struggling to hold back the tears filling her eyes. “This man said ‘Here’s your lesson’, Mama, when he hit me with his knee. And afterwards, said he got carried away–but he meant to hurt me, I know he did.”

“It’s that Captain Dabir!” stormed Annakiya. “It’s unfair! I’ll have him reported!”

Mama was dabbing Shioni’s knees with her apron. “Sorry, my cub, I need to get all the dirt out. I’s sorry you got hurt.” Her smile widened. “Problem is you doesn’t give up. I knows you.”

Shioni grimaced. “You do, Mama.”

“Well, there’s brave and there’s foolish.”

“I know, I know. I’m not feeling so brave now.”

“Oh honey! You needs to know when to be brave and when to be sensible. Didn’t you feel something nasty a-coming? No, you’s just more like, ‘I’ll stick my chin out, Mama. I’s stubborn, Mama!’ Am I right or am I right?”

“Right,” said Annakiya. Annoyingly, she looked like she was quite enjoying the dressing-down Shioni was receiving.

“And those men don’t like no fighting back, no sir!” Mama clicked her fingers at the Princess as though she were a lowly slave-girl, rather than the Princess of the realm. “Get me some water, Annakiya, don’t just stand there catching flies! Isn’t that Dabir new?”

“He hasn’t been a Captain long, if that’s what you’re asking, Mama,” said Annakiya, scooping water from a tall storage jar in the corner of the room. “He’s been a warrior long enough. He’s a favourite of my brother’s.”

One of Prince Bekele’s friends? That explained a few things, Shioni thought, shivering.

Mama put her hands on her hips in the way she always did when she was working up some steam. “Don’t make him no good in my eyes! I’d wager you a pebble for the King’s crown, General Getu don’t like him none either.”

“Here’s a wet cloth, Mama.”

“Don’t. Please… ouch! That stings.” Shioni bit her lip. Who had ever thought it a good idea for her to be bodyguard to the Princess? The warriors were all twice her size! Well–no man would be allowed in the Princess’ bedchamber, she knew. And assassins could get there as well as anywhere else.

“I’ll stitch your cheek next,” said Mama, applying the cloth more vigorously than Shioni would have preferred. “Then I’ll stitch up that bully, or my name’s not Mama Nomuula.”

“It’ll just make it worse.”

“Honey, I’ll not have that man–”

“Mama Nomuula, please. He’ll forget. I just want to be an ordinary slave-girl.”

“You’s a stubborn donkey,” grumbled Mama, starting to pick grit out of Shioni’s kneecap with her fingernail. “But you ain’t no ordinary girl, honey. Ain’t never been. Not to me.”

Mama had no idea, thought Shioni. But, as always, her words were like honey to her heart.

“Are you feeling alright?” Annakiya, who was always sympathetic to aches and hurts, put her hand to Shioni’s forehead. “Hmm, a bit warm.”

“Sunshine and exercise,” said Shioni. She loved her friends’ grumbling and mothering and fussing over her. It was just what she needed after a rotten week.

“Reminds me,” said Mama, taking Shioni’s chin in her hand to keep her from looking anywhere but into her eyes, “you didn’t tell me you vomited all over the elephant pen yesterday. The handler was all in a stir–said you have witch powers. Actually he said you was asmati, one of the little people. Or had an asmati spirit in you. I’s not buying that horse manure from nobody, says I. And he says you found out Beauty was pregnant just by looking at her. You’s left one mighty confused handler in that pen, girl.”

“Well you told me to go talk to them!”

Mama’s eyebrows did their special waggling dance which always made Shioni laugh. “Oh, Mama!”

She related what she thought had happened at the elephant pen. Then, mostly for Annakiya’s benefit, she backtracked to the talking cat, and even further back to the lion’s cave.

Mama gave her another massive hug. “Sure as eggs are eggs, you ain’t no asmati or witch or nothing, girl! Don’t you be worrying about nothing. I knows you since you was knee high to a grasshopper.”

Annakiya put in, “But Mama, it is peculiar, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well!” said Mama, beaming at them both. Mama could out-beam any sunbeam when she set her mind to it. “I’s gonna dig right to the bottom of this, you’s a-counting on that for sure–or my name’s not Mama Nomuula!”

Shioni looked from one friend to the other. Now, if they knew what she had just decided in the quietness of her heart, they would have locked her in the dungeon and tossed away the key.

She had to go back to the lion. She just… had to.

Chapter 5: Feeding Lions

SHIONI HATED TELLING LIES. But how else could she have escaped a busy afternoon’s responsibilities, in a castle full of watching eyes and jealous gossips who liked nothing more than to create trouble for a ferengi slave?

So she had ‘borrowed’ an official-looking scroll and an oil lamp, sneaked her pony Star off the picket line, and lied to the camp guard that she was conveying a message to the elders of Ginab Village. Taking her dagger and recurve bow for protection, she set off in the late afternoon. But she had been forced to hide in an acacia thicket for an hour from a Sheban patrol, who were feasting on a walia ibex they must have killed and cooked. Had General Getu caught his warriors shirking their patrol duties like that… she whistled between her teeth. Ouch!

That said, she had better hurry or her rump would be the one being kicked to Takazze and back.

At dusk she surprised a bushbuck drinking at the river and was pleased to bring it down with an intrepid arrow shot. Reasoning that the lion might want something to eat–other than her, hopefully–she put the animal in front of her on Star.

But as the sun sank behind the mountains and the deep shadows of night drew in, Shioni was forced to slow her pace lest she ride off the edge of the trail. She slipped past Ginab Village on foot, leading Star with a hand on her muzzle, and heaved a sigh of relief when the worst noise she heard was the crowing of a crazed rooster who must have mistaken night for morning. Thereafter a full moon rose as if to cast its seal of blessing upon her venture. Shioni mounted up and trotted on eastward, struggling to pick out landmarks on a trail that was six days old and looked utterly different by night. Hours slipped by in endless plodding.

Arguments and counter-arguments had been leaping about in her head like a swarm of river frogs for days now. There was the danger–the utter idiocy, rather–of trying to tend a wounded lion, as her heart demanded. And against that, the memory of feelings and pictures stealing into her mind from elsewhere. The cat. The elephants’ strange behaviour. She kept hopping from one side to the other.

Was it all just intuition? Or a mysterious power?

Either way, she could not have dared tell Mama or Princess Annakiya what she was up to…

Just when her chin was dropping towards her chest, Shioni jerked upright on Star’s back. Here–at last! She recognised the split acacia tree where she had first traced the lion’s spoor. Her mind began to gallop. From the position of the stars, it was around the fourth hour of darkness. She should have been tucked beneath her warm blanket. Instead, she was about to visit a lion in its den. How many ways could one spell ‘stupid’?

Too late now. She dismounted and used a length of rope to tie Star to the split acacia.

“Be good until I return, girl.”

If she returned. She had at best an hour before she would have to start the return journey. Hopefully she could doze a little on Star’s back. Shioni laughed at herself for planning a return that the lion might spoil.

Despite the lucid moonlight, she had to cast around for a few minutes to find the narrow defile that led down to the cave. She paused to light the lamp. It took nine tries because her hands were trembling so much. With the help of the lamplight she deduced that there was no spoor coming back out of the cavern. The lion was probably still lying injured inside, or more likely, dead. But the moist breeze coming out of the cave mouth did not smell of decay. She did not sense anything either–had she expected to?

‘Last chance…’

She must have a bagful of monkey nuts for brains. Dagger in one hand, lantern in the other, and dragging the bushbuck behind her on a rope, Shioni ducked beneath the boulder at the entrance of the lion’s cave.

After a short crawl, Shioni found herself entering a slender cavern that dived steeply underground. Here she had to tread carefully or face a slide into unknown darkness. The lamplight winked off walls glistening with mineral deposits. She found another smear of dried, but not old, blood on one of the rocks. The lion had come this way. Definitely. And unless there was another exit from the cave, he was still in here. With her.

She slipped now and stumbled a few steps down onto a sandy stretch of cavern floor. Her light wobbled crazily. When it steadied she found her gaze riveted upon a tan heap lying just an arm’s length from her right foot. A heap which stirred weakly as her presence came to the great cat’s awareness.

Her breath stopped as though her throat were one of Mama’s gourds she had just corked.

The greatest of cats. Even lying down, the lion was enormous. He could have used her ribs for toothpicks, she thought, had he been well. But a cloying smell rose to her nostrils, the sweetish stench of festering flesh mixed with the pungent odour of a large cat. He was bloodied in a dozen places, his muzzle deeply gouged, and upon his chest he wore a dark stain with the gnawed stump of an arrow protruding from it.

She winced. Now would be a good time to run away. A wise time. Wouldn’t it?

Shioni set the lantern carefully on a nearby rock. Ignoring the little voice whispering in her head about how accurate her daydream had been, she skinned the buck with a practised hand and sliced some meat off its haunches. She waved it near the lion’s nose.

“Come on, you need to eat.”

The black-maned lion was too weak to raise his head. A kind of shiver shook his fur. His breathing… it was shallow, sometimes rapid, sometimes hard to detect.

Her nervous laugh echoed too loudly in the cave. Very well. Who needed fingers anyway? She diced the meat with her dagger. Right. She took hold of his muzzle and pulled back his lip to reveal a set of canines she would have preferred to be behind the bars of a strong metal cage, like in the King’s menagerie in Takazze, and not just about on her lap. She levered his jaw open and began to feed the lion chunk after chunk of meat, poked as far back in his mouth as she dared with her finger. She then massaged his throat to force him to swallow. His fur was surprisingly soft. She would have thought it coarse, more like cowhide. But this was akin to a bolt of silk Princess Annakiya had once purchased–for an eye-popping sum of money, she remembered. The King had reacted furiously.

She slipped a large dose of Mama’s special healing herbs onto his tongue and helped that down with several more chunks of meat.

Between morsels, she checked the wounds she could see. Most were shallow flesh-wounds, not nearly as worrying as the arrow. That was deadly; the one that would kill him if left to fester.

At some point, she realised one tawny eye was open, watching her carnivorously. Her heart skipped a beat. It skipped several–but he did not sharpen his canines on her flesh. She heard a low sound and realised that the lion was purring. He must know she was helping, Shioni decided, and just as this thought entered her mind, a feeling of gratitude followed on its heels. As if on cue other images poured forth; however, she could make little sense of the flood, and feared she might drown under the barrage. She set her will to deliberately shut the door on whatever her traitorous mind was cooking up.

“I’ll need to cut that arrow out,” she said, as if holding a conversation with a wild lion was an everyday activity. “You won’t bite my hand off, will you?”

The eye drooped shut. Shioni drew several deep breaths into her lungs as she considered the arrow. She was still trembling. The little voice was telling her she had only one life and not to play with it; that his claws were plentiful and sharp; that his canines were the length of her fingers and designed to rip the throats out of animals the lion hunted for. She put both hands on the dagger to keep it steady, and pressed the blade in along the arrow-shaft.

The lion shuddered from mane to paw.

She paused, and as the lion made no further move, let her breath out in a long hiss. She worked the blade about in search of the edge of the arrowhead. Mountain arrows were often barbed, the better to grip in the flesh once an animal was struck. Then she drew the dagger out and made a second, similar cut above the arrowhead.

Right. And here came the foolish part where she got herself killed.

Shioni gripped the protruding shaft as best she could with her right hand, while she laid her left hand flat on his chest alongside it. She could feel the heat through his fur. Slowly, steadily, she pulled, and although the lion groaned and his claws jerked spasmodically, nothing happened. But she had been training with the warriors. There was real strength in her fingers and arms now. Shioni put her left hand on top of her right, placed her feet either side of the arrow, and threw all of her might into a second attempt. With a ghastly, drawn-out sucking noise, the broken arrow popped out of the lion’s chest.

Blood and pus gushed out of the wound, covering her hands and feet with a foul, greenish-red ooze mixed in with gobs of crimson half-clotted blood.

“Disgusting!” Shioni sat back on her haunches. “And I’m still alive.”

The lion seemed to be unconscious now. She imagined she could feel something mysterious emanating from the prone body, which simply had to be to do with the strangeness of what she was doing. Medicating a lion? She had a pretty fair idea of what Mama might say to that!

Shioni opened the stopper on her water gourd and washed out the puncture wound as best she could. She packed it with a special moss that Mama swore by to speed healing. The flow of blood slowed to a trickle, and then stopped. She used the rest of her water on the worst of his other bites and scratches, and used up every scrap of moss she had dared to filch from Mama’s store. There, that was the best she could do.

Suddenly aware of the passage of time, Shioni picked up the lamp. She still had the ride back, the same distance their column had taken the better part of a day and a half to cover. She had less than half of the night left.

The lion would have to fend for himself now.

And as for her? She had to be madder than a madman she had once seen dancing on a nest of soldier ants–but she felt pretty good about that. And so very alive she was practically buzzing from head to toe!

So if she could just return to Castle Asmat without being found out… with a sigh, she started to concoct her next lie.

Chapter 6: Mama Nomuula Speaks

“THEM’S DEAD AFRAID OF this castle,” Mama Nomuula said, in what Shioni liked to think of as her storytelling voice. Mama did like to put on a show during the evening storytelling. “Them villagers is clucking and jumping like chickens chased by a fox. Something’s not right, mark my words. And I’s not started talking about black magic or nothing. The arogit herself said…”

Shioni’s attention drifted. Who cared what the old woman of the village had said? She was desperately tired after her adventure with the lion the previous night. ‘This morning,’ she corrected herself, with a yawn any lion would have been proud of. Warm, and enjoying a full belly for once, as Mama had slipped her a second helping of bread with dinner, she let the conversation drift over her.

Asmat Castle was not what she had expected. From afar it had looked impressive, but closer in, the ruined state of the outer defensive wall became clear. The wall was so thick that Captain Dabir had joked, ‘What were they defending? Giants? Avalanche?’ and beside Annakiya, Hakim Isoke had muttered to the Princess–but loudly enough for many to overhear, ‘Ignoramus! He should study the arts of war.’ Shioni struggled desperately to school her features to remain still.

The slaves had been swarming over the thick outer walls and the old moat for several days now, trying to dig out centuries of rockfall and dirt and make it defensible. Engineers were preparing to divert a stream to refill the moat when it was ready. A startling number of labourers had been employed inside, readying rooms, installing and making furniture, equipping the kitchens, shooing out birds and insects, and making all manner of repairs.

‘Man was made for the open air. Give me a tent any day,’ was Dabir’s response to the great hall of the castle. ‘Barbarian,’ sneered Isoke, reporting this later to Annakiya during her lessons. ‘That fool should rather herd goats than live with civilized people.’

The central keep was a solid, if worn, cross-shaped building with cross-shaped arrow slits in the walls, built around a spacious central courtyard. Some parts of the underground cellars had caved in, making the north and east wings dangerous, but the greater part had kept surprisingly well over the years since it had been abandoned.

Shioni liked the courtyard best. It felt old and cosy. The stone used for construction had a warm reddish colour, especially towards sunset. There was a gigantic baobab tree near the kitchen, so tall that it hurt her neck to try to catch a glimpse of the top, and it took her twenty-seven paces to walk around its pot-bellied trunk. She had measured. Only, she wished its root-like branches were not so curiously bare of greenery, or birds, or any other living thing.

The courtyard looked like it must once have been busy, full of the sights and sounds of castle life. There was also a well, but it had run dry too. The slave-girls–even the young ones–had to fetch water from the river every day. Even thinking about that task made her arms hurt!

But the castle was overrun with vipers. Perhaps they had been nesting amongst all the fallen stones in the ruins, and now the arrival of so many people had disturbed them. Already, three slaves had been bitten and one had died. The King himself had been found sharing a bed with two adders one morning–he was lucky to escape unhurt.

Mama Nomuula was talking about asmat. It was an old word, meaning magic or witchcraft. “There’s asmati in them mountains,” she was saying. “Little creatures, about as tall as your knee. Nasty and crafty, they are. Your hen go missing? Asmati for sure. Your cow’s milk go sour? Your clothes get holes? That’s asmati work. They likes nothing better than to make trouble for us humans. And bad feelings. They loves bad feelings.”

“Mama, tell us what the witch-lady said!”

“She were moon-mad, and no witch,” said Nomuula, her dark eyes twinkling in the lamplight. Around her, at least thirty slaves were crowded into her tiny room, and more were jammed into the doorway to listen. “But many a wise word’s been spoke by the mad–God save them.”

Shioni was squeezed in next to Mama, half-hidden in a shadowy corner, and with her good eye regarded the room. The other was still swollen half-shut after her ‘lesson’ delivered by the warriors, but it was getting better. The crowd was nodding along. ‘Ay.’ ‘That’s a true word.’

“Well, we’s just arrived in Ginab when this woman comes running along–”

“She had no clothes!”

“Who’s telling the story, you cheeky monkey?” Mama’s round face broke into a beaming smile as she regarded a three-year-old boy. “Ay, not a thread did she have, and she were smeared in fresh cow-pat like you could smell fifty paces off. Well I tell not a word of a lie, she scream and scream about a witch who cursed the castle, the vultures circling above ready to pick our bones, and them snakes–all the time dancing like a whirlwind. Then just sudden-like she throws herself into General Getu’s arms!” She pretended to spit on the floor. “Pah! The pong! Poor Shioni here had to wash his uniform four times before the smell would come out!”

Through the laughter, a voice called, “Just the job a ferengi’s good for!”

Mama Nomuula’s expression turned to stone. “Tadesse, I’ve known you since you was swaddled in wet-cloths,” she growled, “and you ain’t grown a shred of sense since.”

“Now, Mama Nomuula, don’t you be like–”

“Tadesse–have you forgotten? I’m a ferengi too.” All the jollity had been sucked out of her. She added, with a sigh, “I’m tired. Why don’t you all just go?”

After the silent throng had filed out, Mama Nomuula turned to Shioni. “Honey? You… are you sleeping with your eyes open down there?”

Shioni jumped as though she had been pricked by a pin. “Huh? What… Mama?”

What a weird daydream! An elephant’s trunk holding a key, pushing it into her head, turning it with a scraping and squeaking of bolts and levers? Or was it a memory? She had heard everything in the room throughout. Those elephants had not, well, done something to her whilst she was unconscious in their pen, had they?

A pair of tree-trunk arms swept Shioni up and tucked her into the small cot that stood at the foot of Mama Nomuula’s bed. This was what having a real mother must feel like–wonderful. “Mama?” she said sleepily. “I didn’t know… I mean… thank you…”

“Don’t you fuss now,” said Mama Nomuula, bending over the bed. “You’s been a-yawning all day. You sleeping alright?” Shioni nodded. “So where’d you go last night?”

“Last night? Nowhere, Mama.”

“I loves you like my own, Shioni. Don’t you be telling Mama Nomuula no fibs.” But she added with an unexpected chuckle, “Anyways, I’s a better liar than you. I’s seen you, girl, coming in before dawn. It’s when I make the bread dough and leave it to rise.”

“Oh.” Shioni’s eyelids seemed weighted with bags of sand. “I went to look after the lion, Mama.”

“Oh, my poor soul, you crazy… you brave girl. Now just you sleep. And don’t you be fooling like that again! My old heart couldn’t stand to lose another girl.”

Another? Whatever did she mean? But Shioni was too tired to think any more. Her eyes drooped shut and stayed that way.

Chapter 7: Well, Well…

SHIONI SNEAKED UP THE well-used stone steps to the highest watchtower.

Tewodros, the warrior stationed below, had let her pass. He was one of the few who showed her any kindness. It was he who had carried her, unconscious, off the practice field–when? A week ago now? The days in Castle Asmat were flying by on an eagle’s wings. At least her bruises were mostly healing up.

She didn’t want to cause any trouble for him–hence the sneaking.

She muttered to herself, ‘I’ll bet none of those warriors would have crawled into a lion’s den!’ How was the lion? His plight still weighed heavily on her heart.

But once she was leaning over the battlements, it was hard not to feel exhilarated by the solitude, the fresh breeze, and the wonderful views. No witch-cursed castle had a right to such a beautiful home, she thought. Towards Takazze, the capital of West Sheba, eagles and bearded vultures soared over a slender, grassy valley, burnt now to a tan colour by the incessant sunshine of the dry season. What would it look like when the rains came? Beyond the valley, the lush river plains stretched like an emerald carpet all the way to the Takazze River. Dramatic black basalt cliffs frowned down upon the castle. But in the opposite direction, rank upon rank of dagger-sharp volcanic mountains pierced the skies. Her blood sang when she looked up there.

Now that was wishful thinking! As if anyone would let a mere slave-girl explore...

It seemed impossible that mountain peaks could be so sharp and jumbled. The priest had joked that at the time of creation, God must have taken a handful of spare mountains, tossed them somewhere for safekeeping, and then forgotten all about them. Here and there, she saw the purple smudge of high, heathery moors. And beneath the lower slopes, bearded with thick, dark forests, she imagined secret valleys, caves, and waterfalls. Were there lions and leopards? Dragons? What about the fabled gold mines of Belshalar, the Mountain King?

Secrets guarded by the Wasabi, who according to Mama Nomuula, were a band of thugs, villains and murderers. She shivered.

“Hsst! Girl! You’re wanted below.”

Shioni started, and then turned to hurry after the warrior.

On her way down from the tower, she had to stand aside for a group of slaves who were carrying a great block of stone for the repairs. Seeing her, they exchanged low comments as if she wasn’t even present:

“Rotten ferengi.”

“Lucky… belongs to the Princess, right?”

“Looks weird.”

“So pale, like a ghost.”

But once she was down in the courtyard, she found she had bigger problems. Two warriors of Captain Dabir’s cohort were waiting for her, and they were both smirking like a pair of boys planning a raid on Mama Nomuula’s pantry.

“The Captain says we need to fix the well,” explained the first. “We need water inside the castle. You slaves should appreciate that.”

“So we picked someone nice and light to go down and take a look. Why strain our backs lowering a man down there?”

Shioni studied her feet. What choice did she have?

One of them dropped a fat gob of spit near her right foot. “We brought you a lantern. Might be dark. Scary place for a girl.”

“There might be bats,” suggested the other. “Bats that suck your blood dry. I hear they like ferengi blood best of all.”

The teasing continued as they walked her over to the well. Shortly, Shioni found herself being lowered down, down, down, into dank darkness. The loop of rough cord hurt her armpits, but that was nothing compared to the scared-rabbit thumping of her heart. All her bravery had leaked away.

She held up the lantern. The well was deeper than she had imagined. And gloomier. The bottom was a heap of boulders partially covered in centuries of wind-blown dust and leaves. Shioni loosened the loop of rope and slipped it over her shoulders.

A call echoed down, “You alright down there?”

“Yes!”

“Give us a shout when you want to come up!”

She ran her fingertips along the wall, finding it damp, but not very wet. Had those boulders stopped a spring? Where had all the water gone? Shioni glanced up. The light was a long way above her head! And the well was wider than she had expected–just a little wider than her outstretched arms. Well, here was a puzzle. She’d better spend some time taking a good look or those mean warriors would take her to task…

Shioni forced herself to examine every nook and cranny within her reach. She went over everything twice, finding nothing. She rubbed her arms. The masons would have to come down and remove the rocks, she decided. There was nothing more she could do.

“Hello?” Her voice echoed plaintively. The rope was gone!

Shioni clapped her hands to her mouth, stifling a small shriek. The warriors–no wonder they had been grinning! This was their plan all along. Thoughts jammed her head. They would come back, wouldn’t they? Would someone hear if she shouted? But with all the building work going on, there was constant noise and bustle. What if they left her down here forever? Could she climb out on her own? She didn’t want to die in a well!

She could kick herself for being so easily hoodwinked. Shioni inspected the walls again. The masonry was old enough that she could find or dig toe-holds with the long dagger she always carried. But her body was still aching from the beating she’d taken in training the previous week. Her knees were a mass of itchy scabs and her left big toe had lost a flap of skin. No ramming that into a handy chink.

She tried calling for a while, even screaming when she grew a bit scared and felt as though the walls were closing in on her, but nobody came. It was already late afternoon. Then the lantern spluttered and died.

Shioni swallowed around a rock-hard lump in her throat. “Come on, think!” she said aloud, trying to feel comforted by the sound of her own voice. “Annakiya will miss me at dinner. She’ll come looking for sure, if she isn’t lost in her scrolls again. And I don’t want to call them for help! I’ll have to climb. Toe or no toe.”

After climbing a few feet, Shioni worked out she could turn her left foot sideways and use the side of her toe, which hurt a lot less. She would work the dagger as deep as she could into the chink between two stones, then hang from it while she found good hand- and toe-holds higher up. But when she looked up, the fading circle of light seemed no closer than before. A raindrop struck her arm.

Oh no! Shioni clung to the wall. The bottom was lost in the gloom. Her arms were shaking. Two of her fingernails were torn and bleeding. She had to go down again. That was the only answer. An unwelcome tear trickled down her cheek. She dashed it away angrily. Crying meant letting the warriors win! Crying was a waste of energy, and what good had crying ever done a slave-girl anyway?

A few feet lower, Shioni noticed that she was crossing a line of dry green slime on the wall. It had to be the old water-level. Her shoulders were burning. Her fingers, curling into claws from the cold and cramp. The rain was sifting down steadily. She had to rest again.

Shioni was descending at a painful snail’s-pace, when she suddenly found the dagger slipping into a wider space between the stones. It wouldn’t hold. Rats! Horrible, beady rat eyes! She jabbed again, and twisted the blade about irately, as though that slim piece of metal was responsible for all her frustrations.

Click.

She yelped as a section of masonry suddenly swung inwards, taking the knife with it. Perhaps that was what saved her from a nasty fall. Shioni found herself sprawling in the mouth of a tunnel, which sloped steeply towards the surface. Her heart leaped like a frog in her chest! Perhaps there was another way out…

Shioni scrambled to her feet, dusting off her knees and palms. Keeping one hand outstretched, and the other brushing the tunnel wall with a fingertip touch, she crept upward. Was this a secret tunnel? Where would it lead? Here and there roots had broken through the bricks and dangled in her face. Shioni found herself imagining giant spiders, centipedes, and bats. “I’m not afraid!” She tried a little laugh. “Just wait until Annakiya hears about this!”

But her voice vanished in the tunnel as though it had been swallowed by an unseen beast.

After a long time, the tunnel broadened out and seemed to become lighter. Shioni found herself entering a large grotto, although it took her a few moments to understand what she was seeing. The chamber was roughly circular. Light was filtering down from somewhere above. And the ceiling was supported by what she took at first for columns of stone. But as she touched one she realised her mistake. They were roots, each thicker than her waist. She must be right beneath the giant baobab!

As though tugged by strings, Shioni moved forward between the massive tree roots. In the dim half-light she could just make out a stone pedestal in the centre of the grotto. Was that a bottle standing on the pedestal? As she moved closer, she began to sense that there might be something inside it. How very odd. A bottle… hidden in a secret cave? Yes, definitely, and it was stirring…

An odd sound gave her pause. A breath, a tiny scraping sound. Right above her head.

Very, very slowly, Shioni turned her neck. Her eyes widened; her blood froze. Not two feet overhead, staring at her with ruby eyes as big as pigeons’ eggs, was the most enormous python she had ever seen. The King had a pet reticulated python which was big enough to swallow a baby goat. This sleek monster looked capable of eating a full-grown man. Its tongue flicked in and out, tasting the air. A wave of pure hatred seemed to pour out of the serpent, stupefying her.

Shioni’s shriek hit a piercing note of uncontained terror as the python dropped onto the back of her shoulders.

Pythons like a good ambush, as every Sheban child was taught from a young age. ‘Watch out in the forests! Look before you leap!’ But this one was so heavy that her slight frame was struck head-over-heels, in a flurry of knees and elbows, clear of the deadly coils for a vital instant. Shioni crashed into the base of the pedestal. Hiss! In the gloom, the reptile’s eyes gleamed like red stars.

She darted behind the nearest root. The python slithered after with surprising swiftness. She dodged again, and it tracked her movement with smooth menace. A strange ballet developed, with Shioni dodging from cover to cover and the python dogging her every footstep.

It was awfully persistent… quite unlike how a python ought to behave. Not that she had much experience with pythons! But surely no snake had eyes the colour of blood? Albino eyes were pink, not crimson! And this reptile’s eyes were glowing like lamps.

Magic! A thought wailed within her mind. Asmat! This was why the castle was named Black Magic castle! This was the reason for all the snakes… because their queen lived beneath the baobab.

All she could think was to run away. But she was lost, confused, turned around amidst the dangling roots. Shioni dodged and weaved, trying to keep one eye on the swift reptile while she searched desperately for the tunnel by which she had entered, or any other place she could hide or escape to. But the roots were a twisted maze.

And all the while, the snake’s hatred was gushing like a cruel waterfall that wanted to dash her against its rocks. It was more than a feeling: it was cruel and corrupt, a repulsive, bullying, callous thing that seemed to dredge up every awful thing she had ever imagined and parade it through her mind. It was demeaning and vindictive, worse than a thousand of the verbal insults she had suffered in her lifetime.

Her initial panic began to subside. Determined to out-think the beast, Shioni hatched a plan. She began to work her way around the edge of the chamber, keeping it at her right side. The doorway couldn’t be far. Then she would just walk away... and climb the well? Maybe. At least, far enough to be out of its reach. To her annoyance, however, the python seemed wise to her ideas. The coils twisted about, looping and curling in unexpected ways, cutting off her intended path. One mistake and she would be swallowed whole and digested slowly!

The other place the snake didn’t seem to like her getting close to was the pedestal. In all her darting around Shioni was also trying to take a good look at the bottle, but when she was nearly ambushed a second time by a crafty flick of the python’s tail, she opted rather to focus on keeping her own skin intact. But while her legs were growing tired, the python seemed to be gaining in strength.

Fears like vultures began to encircle her courage. When she slipped making a turn, she had to roll away desperately to avoid the python’s swift, open-mouthed lunge. The ever-burning hatred in those crimson eyes was making her panic. When she slipped again trying to keep a root between her and the python, she knew it was time to change the balance.

Shioni scrambled to her feet. She feinted for the pedestal, waited until the python was close, and then with a scream, took a flying leap over its back to freedom.

Unfortunately, she didn’t quite make it.

Chapter 8: A Night-Time Stroll

EVEN AS SHE LEAPED across the python’s body, Shioni realized she had miscalculated. Help! Her ankle turned on the muscular, pliant coils and crumpled beneath her, sending her skidding across the stone floor of the grotto with a snakelike hiss of her own as she opened up every scab on her right knee. Again.

But she had no chance to think about the pain. The snake swung that broad head about and lunged for her–at least, where it thought she was. It struck one of the gnarled roots a jarring blow, mouth agape and fangs bared. The fangs lodged in the wood for a moment. Shioni winged a grateful prayer to the heavens. This was just the break she needed. She sprang to her feet and pelted away from the snake, startled to find that her ankle still took her weight. It thrashed about back there in a fury.

She and snakes had never been particular enemies, but neither did she like them. Python steak was very tasty. She’d enjoyed that back at the royal palace once.

‘Python steak?’ she shook her head. ‘Honestly, Shioni, you’re thinking about your stomach now? There! The door!’

Drat, her ankle was announcing its hurts now. Shioni struck the edge of the tunnel a glancing blow as she ducked inside. Behind, she heard an enormous HISS! And the snake’s skin rustled across the stone floor. She had no doubt the python, freed, was coming after her again.

A monster like that would make a fine meal for most of the castle, she decided.

Shioni rushed along the tunnel as quickly as she dared, back down toward the blackness of the well shaft. Dangling roots slapped her face. She whacked something on her neck instinctively and came away with half a handful of spider ichor and a few hairy legs. But she was so focused on her escape she just wiped her hand absently on her tunic and kept right on fleeing, running her fingers along the tunnel wall to try to keep somewhat in the middle.

She had to slow down. Falling into the well and killing herself now would be pointless. Shioni tried to feel for a space ahead of her.

HISS! She glanced over her shoulder. Twin red orbs were gliding down the tunnel toward her, almost faster than she could run. They held a strangely hypnotic power. For the first time, she appreciated how a rat must feel, mesmerized by an adder before it strikes. But she was no rat! Tearing her gaze from those baleful eyes, Shioni very nearly tumbled over the edge of the well shaft.

“Elephant turds!” she gasped.

Her arms flailed about as she teetered on the edge. Shioni shrieked as her fingernails scored the side of the tunnel. She was falling! Her fingers suddenly hooked on stone. With a loud groan, the stone began to move, causing her to swing forward again. The wall shaft yawned beneath her. Just as Shioni realised she had a hold of the top edge of the stone door it swung shut behind her, jamming her fingers in the crack. Despite a jerk of pain, her hand was stuck fast.

Quick. The dagger. Shioni jabbed the dagger twice, three times, above her head before the blade gained purchase. As deftly as she could, she raised herself and found a toehold with her left foot. Up, girl! Up, for her life depended upon her climbing. She pressed the door back again with her foot, more by accident than design, and thus managed to wriggle her fingers free. Thank heavens, actually, for that door! She wrung her hand. It had saved her from a nasty fall.

“Shioni? You’s down there, my pet?”

Mama’s voice! Her head jerked up. “Help, Mama! I’m down here!”

She could just about make out a circle of faces around the well-mouth, just patches of darkness, really, silhouetted against the stars. A coil of rope slapped her in the mouth. But she had never in her life been so grateful to be made to eat rope.

“Shioni?” called Annakiya.

“Pull me up!”

Shioni wound the rope several times about her wrist, and before she could think the better of that idea, was yanked powerfully upward. She quickly transferred the dagger to her mouth and hung on with both hands as a clutch of burly warriors hauled her out of the well as though she were no heavier than a small sack of grain.

Suddenly she was in Annakiya’s arms. “Oh, Shioni! I’ve never been so glad to see you! When Tewodros told us we were so worried–”

“We was asking all over!” Mama cried, scooping them both up in her arms. “We’s a-running all over this heap of rock like some pair of headless chickens–”

“But we found you! Well, Kifle–heavens. You were down the well?”

“Oh please, sister,” came the cool tones of Prince Bekele. “All this fuss over a mere slave-girl?”

“Was your men put her down there!” snapped Mama.

The Prince of West Sheba drew himself up. “Oh, go back to your pots and pans, woman! It was probably just a joke between warriors. An initiation, I suppose.”

And he stalked off with his nose pointed to the heavens.

Shioni suspected Annakiya was tempted to spit at her brother at that point. Mama, too, although she was trembling, wisely held her tongue. “Come, Shioni. You’s cold and tired and needs your bed. Where’s it hurting?”

“Where’s it not hurting, Mama,” she said, hobbling away between her two friends. “Thank you. Thank you for coming–”

“Please! Think we’d leave you down there, my honey?”

“I’m so sorry,” Annakiya added, putting her arm around Shioni’s shoulders. “Come–leaping hyenas, you’re filthy! Mama?”

“Anni, you two aren’t making a drop of sense. How’d you–”

“Kifle saw two warriors talking to you by the well,” said the Princess. “Then Tewodros heard laughter down in the camp about someone ‘getting payback’. When he and Kifle changed over duties at sunset, they were chatting and, somehow… you’ve got them to thank, Shioni.”

“Oh I definitely will!”

“I’s fetching fresh clothes, warm water, and a double helping of my special medicine,” said Mama, waddling away toward her kitchens.

“Ugh, not the medicine!”

Annakiya laughed into her shoulder, held Shioni fiercely for a moment, and then looked her over. “I’ll bet half the jewels of my kingdom Bekele or Dabir put those men up to their little joke,” she said. “But you know, they say some slaves just aren’t worth the trouble to keep. And then there are those who definitely are.”

“Are trouble, or are worth keeping?”

The Princess laughed softly, but there was something in her friend’s eyes that Shioni could not quite place. “My father paid a silver talent for you, my friend. I think he got himself the bargain of the century. If only he would realise it. If only he knew…”

How precious his own daughter was, Shioni thought, finishing Annakiya’s unspoken words for her. Prince Bekele was a model of the King in more ways than one. And that included his dislike for his sister.

After enduring Mama Nomuula’s fussing over her like a mother hen and forcing her to down two cups of her ‘special brew’, which practically curdled her stomach, Shioni was made to change and go straight to bed.

“You’s needing your rest now,” she clucked. “Been a big day for you, my little dove.”

And how! Mama could not have guessed the half of it, Shioni thought, and smiled at her over the heap of extra furs that Mama had brought from her own bed. It was on the tip of her tongue to start telling her what had happened, but instead, what came out was: “Thank you, Mama. For everything.”

The huge woman paused in the doorway, wiping what had to be a tear from the corner of her dark eyes. “Just look at you all tucked in like a cat in her basket, with those green eyes still twinkling at me. I was so worried. But now you’s fine. I’s going to see to it or I’s a slinking old hyena and no Mama Nomuula.”

And with that, the light of her lantern receded down the corridor.

Shioni must have dozed for a while, because she could now hear Princess Annakiya’s soft breathing in the room, but after a while, the excitement of the day caught up with her and she found herself lying awake, thinking. The hyenas were calling. Every night now, their hunch-backed shadows stalked around Castle Asmat’s walls, and the chorus of their eerie yipping, cackling and laughing rose like a song to the moon.

A song she was beginning to understand.

This was all too strange. She lay on her pallet, chewing her lip. She had felt that python. The lion–well, she had ignored him, but there had been something from him too. This was all wrong. Maybe she was going crazy. She worried and puzzled it around in her mind for what seemed ages, as Castle Asmat slept. Eventually she gave up. Rising quietly to avoid disturbing Princess Annakiya, she padded out into the night. The dry-season sky was clear, the stars brilliant, and the soft chirruping of crickets added to what should have been a balmy night. But the castle was on edge. Not a day was free of accident or mishap. The King was snappish, the slaves grumbled, and the warriors prowled about like nervous cats.

With the King’s birthday feast just days away, the castle-dwellers should have been getting ready to celebrate.

As she slipped through the courtyard, where the stone walls still radiated a comfortable warmth from heat stored during the day, her gaze touched on the well. Shioni grimaced. She had to tell them soon. That bottle was so out of place… just as soon as she had some idea herself. Just as soon as she stopped being scared.

Shioni greeted the gate-guard softly. A shadow broke away from their number. She recognised Kifle, a slight young man who was an outstanding runner. He thought nothing of running to Takazze and back in a day.

“Off on our usual night-time stroll?” he said. “Aren’t you afraid of the hyenas?”

“I don’t bother them, so they don’t bother me.”

“Seems there are more every night,” said Kifle. “I don’t like it. The slaves cleared all the garbage, yet still those mangy animals come.”

If only he knew! The hyenas were looking forward to a feast of bones, the bones of everyone in the castle. And how did she know this? She trembled. The elephants or the python… something had changed inside of her. For good or for ill? She could feel it, and she was afraid.

Shioni said, “Hyenas and snakes? Nothing a warrior couldn’t handle.”

Kifle made a rude noise in his throat. “Just be careful out there.”

Once she was far enough from the warriors, Shioni turned off the road and struck into the bush a ways. She hunted a rock hyrax and downed it with her throwing-knife. After that, she had to push through tall, razor-edged grasses and scrubby bushes for several minutes before she came to a stand of trees. Here was a fallen baobab, where several days before she had discovered the den of a red fox vixen and her four kits.

“Fox?” she said softly.

Seconds later, the vixen’s snout pushed out of the hollow trunk as she tested the air. “Two-leg?”

Shioni froze. Not again!

Now a clear picture entered her mind: A two-legged creature, that was how the fox saw her. She was putting words to a picture. A picture no person should have a right to understand.

Half-hoping she was wrong, Shioni tried to send a picture of the hyrax. The fox seemed pleased, and after a moment she and her four kits emerged to feed. Shioni was torn between holding her breath and wanting to scream. She could hear them. Their feelings were lapping over her–the iron tang of meat in their jaws, their mock-snapping at each other, the mother’s wavering between enjoying the meal and her distrust at letting a two-leg near her kits. Shioni knew the fox would bite her without hesitation if she made a false move.

After the meal, the kits wanted to play. She scratched their tummies and roughed up their fur and they loved it, tumbling over her legs, yapping and snarling and mock-biting her fingers.

Well, if she was going to speak to animals… she should just start trying and learning. “I like your young ones!”

The vixen projected the satisfaction of a full belly.

“My pleasure,” she said, and then, struck by a wacky idea, tried: “Hyenas? What are the hyenas doing in the valley?”

The fox didn’t understand at first. It took Shioni several tries before she received something back, and then it was a confusing gush of images: humans throwing something down a waterfall; a great bonfire jetting sparks into the night sky; hyenas crawling on their bellies towards a dark figure with blazing red eyes seated on a throne decorated with writhing snakes; foxes fleeing from an unknown terror; talons swooping out of blackness…

Eyes like the python? Shioni hugged her knees as a nasty chill speared into her belly. And witchcraft? What in all Sheba could be hidden in that bottle, guarded by the snake?

One thing was for certain. She was not going back down the well to find out!

Chapter 9: Buildings and Births

SHIONI RACED BACK FROM the General’s chamber, her arms loaded with scrolls and maps and building plans. She scampered down the path to the outer defensive wall, which was reluctantly rising out of its foundations, over the rock causeway, and around the still-dry fosse ditch towards the northern side of the castle.

Getu was stumping along up there, leading a posse of masons, engineers and warriors on a merry chase. Her lungs were afire. They were burning like a nice, cheerful blaze had been lit inside and was funnelling its heat and smoke up her throat. But Shioni put her head down and ran faster, despite the fact that her ankle was still tender after her adventure with the python two days before. It was unwise to irritate the General.

And the building work had not stopped, despite preparations for tomorrow’s feast.

“About time!” Hakim Isoke greeted her panting arrival with her customary scowl. “Give me those elevations, girl! Now we will get to the bottom of this.”

Princess Annakiya deftly extracted a rolled-up plan from Shioni’s bundle and placed it in the Hakim’s outstretched palm. The old tutor had an encyclopaedic knowledge of architecture and war craft, and so was often consulted by the General and his building crew. She also had the personality of a thorn bush and the arrogance to tell anyone who would listen how clever she was, Shioni thought sourly. As she watched the Hakim glowering at the scroll, as if by sheer dint of malevolence she could scare it into giving up its secrets, an unaccustomed pair of fingers gripped her jaw and tilted her face up to the light.

“Hmm,” said General Getu. “Where’d you pick up that shiner, girl?”

“Weapons training with the warriors, my Lord.”

He raised an eyebrow. On his half-burned face, that was hardly a comforting expression. “My men playing rough?”

Her eye, Princess Annakiya had commented that very morning, looked like a ‘magnificent beetroot’. Shioni dropped her gaze to her toes, tongue-tied. It was a fine shade of purple, for sure, and starting to turn yellow as it healed up.

The General said, “Hmm,” again, and turned his attention back to the discussion.

What did he mean–‘hmm’? She was accustomed to being ignored by important people, or at very best, insulted or told how slow and lazy she was. Shioni directed a meaningful look at Princess Annakiya, who replied with a tiny shrug of her shoulder as she plucked another scroll out of the bundle.

“My Lord, this old record we have from Axum says that the castle once supported up to a thousand people living hereabouts.”

Without raising her head, Hakim Isoke said, “Well, anyone could see that from the remains of the terracing on the hillsides here. It was an extensive farming operation. That’s one thing we should start developing. When the rains come, the terracing will stop the flow of water downhill into our foundation works.”

“But we want to fill the moat.”

The Hakim rounded on the unfortunate mason and snarled, “When we’re well and ready, you fool, and not before! Have you not listened to anything I’ve been saying? If you want mud and rocks being swept into what you’ve just cleared out then carry on!” She rolled her eyes. “At least try to think with what God set on your shoulders, man!”

“No, this is not your average hilltop fortress,” she said. “Whoever designed this castle was very, very advanced. The size of the outer walls, the corner towers… I have never seen anything to compare. A refuge of last resort against terrible enemies? Enemies with weapons that could threaten such walls as these and tear them down? It doesn’t make sense–but we’ll work it out, won’t we, Princess?”

“Yes, Hakim.” The Princess could be demure when she wished, and Shioni had noticed many times that she knew exactly how to handle the Hakim’s temper. “What about when Ma’rib was threatened by the Axumites...?”

“Many times over the centuries, the Kings of Axum cast greedy eyes across the Red Sea at Sheba’s riches,” Hakim Isoke lectured. “That is beside the point. Our forefathers did not have this knowledge or technology, Princess–have I not taught you so?”

“We built the great dam at Ma’rib.”

“And your father put Axum to the sword. But we still could not have built this structure, nor could the Axumites. Even to cut stone with such precision is a marvel. It must have taken the resources of a great kingdom.”

The Hakim turned to the engineers. “So don’t forget the terraces. Put fifty slaves to it at once. And they can start spreading the manure up there too. We might as well get some use from our horses and elephants.”

General Getu was leading the group further. “So I think we have the wrong course for the river diversion,” he said. “You can see from here. Look up the hill.” His finger traced a path around a large mound. “They brought it down this way. You can still see the channel’s ancient path. This is how they flooded the moat.”

“From higher upriver than we were planning.” The Hakim was measuring the distance with her eyes. “It’ll still take some work. Agreed. Chief mason–mark the plan. Now, about these elevations…”

From then on the discussion turned very technical. Even Annakiya was only pretending interest, Shioni noticed. She waggled her ankle gently. Her collection of bruises and hurts was definitely healing up now. Mama had taken the stitches out of the cut on her cheek. She just hoped it would not leave a scar.

“Pwincess! Pwincess!” A little messenger boy came puffing up the hill. “Twader’s here, Pwincess.”

“The trader?”

“Fabwiccy man.”

“Fabrics,” Shioni translated with a smile. “The fabrics and cosmetics trader, Princess.”

“Oh, he’s early. Come on, he’s supposed to have silks from the east! Hakim?”

“If you have to.”

Annakiya was only too glad to escape. “I must do my father’s bidding.”

Her father’s bidding? Shioni wanted to laugh. Most of all, she wanted to share with Annakiya all that had been happening to her. But she could not put words to her secrets and so they lodged in her breast, making her quiet and pensive and ready to explode. And she had been thinking about going back to check on the lion. She really was a sad case.

Having offloaded the scrolls and plans with another slave, Annakiya and Shioni walked back downhill. From above, the castle resembled an anthill. Workers were swarming over every square foot. The busy clinging and clanging of masons’ chisels and hammers was a constant background noise, along with slaves singing as they shovelled rubble down in the fosse and hauled it out in great bucket-loads. Three elephants were dragging out the bigger blocks of dressed stone, which would be used once more in the building work.

“Not very tall, but stout,” said Annakiya, looking at the castle. “Hakim Isoke says the central keep is quite an innovation. I expected it to be taller, but it’s only twelve feet or so on the walls. The towers are a decent height though.”

“I like it. Especially the baobab.”

“There’s talk of cutting it down for firewood. It seems dead.”

“It reminds me of a fat old man whose belly is nearly sagging to the ground.”

Annakiya laughed. “I think it looks like one of those old wineskins. A pot-bellied wineskin. You know, Mama has been telling me about how useful the baobab is in medicine.”

“In which case, let’s keep it.”

“It’s dead, you silly. Anyway. Will you help me select fabrics for the King’s room, and my clothing, and some curtains…? And then we’ll see what nice cosmetics he has–I’m all out of kohl for starters. And lipstick.”

“I suppose someone has to empty the King’s treasury, right?”

“Whatever do you mean?” The Princess stamped her foot in a fit of outrage so fake that Shioni had to laugh.

“I mean, there’s a reason the traders come all the way from Takazze to find you, isn’t there? And it’s not to take in the cool mountain air. It’s the jingle in your purse.”

“Huh! I am the Princess of West Sheba after all.” Her shoulders slumped. “So I have to set fashion trends, or what would all those women in Court do with their days? I’m so glad we left behind all those tailors and hairdressers, perfumers and stylists…”

“You love the fuss, really.”

“I love a good scroll, that’s what I love. Do you know what Father said to me yesterday? I need to have my hair done like a proper Princess. Apparently–” she kicked a stone off the path, “–I have ‘let myself go’ since we came to the castle.”

“Oh, Anni.”

“Nothing I do is ever good enough for him, Shioni! Nothing–I’m a girl. He always wanted another boy, and that’s that. It’s my fault.”

“Your fault?” Shioni knew little about the Queen, except that she had passed away when Annakiya was four and nobody talked about it. How could her death be Annakiya’s fault? “But your mother–”

“Not my mother!” Annakiya shot back. “Don’t you know anything? I mean the signs of my birth. The wise women told Father I was a boy-child. When a girl arrived, he went mad, absolutely mad. Everyone agrees–a girl is very unlucky.”

“If you believe those things, Anni,” she said earnestly.

The Princess stormed off several steps, then turned to shout, “You know the only reason the King bought you? Because my mother died! You’re just a stupid slave!”

Shioni looked up at the sky. Had lightning just struck from that unblemished expanse, she would have been no less shocked. The accusation that she had been purchased just to provide Annakiya with a distraction–a toy, even–after her mother’s death should have hurt more, she felt. Or would the pain come later? Stupid slave. She’d been called worse. But not by someone who called her ‘friend’, nor with such venom.

Annakiya blamed her mother’s death on her unlucky birth, she realised. Boys were valued above girls in Sheba. So much so, that many of the slave-girls she worked with shared similar stories of being abandoned after birth. But not many had been bought as toys for Princesses.

The Princess had a father.

So was it better to have a father who treated you as worthless, or none at all?

Shioni hurried after Princess Annakiya. She would need someone to hold her purchases–a piece of living chattel to hold her chattels. There, cupped in a perfect nutshell, was her gloriously weird slave’s life.

Chapter 10: Famous, What?

“AH, THE FAMOUS SHIONI,” said the Archivist, peering short-sightedly at her. “Step into the light, my child.”

Shioni stepped forward, feeling a little shy in his presence. The man’s hair was pure white, his eyes deep but twinkling in welcome, and when he smiled his cheeks seemed to develop so many deep creases that the corners of his mouth fairly vanished from sight. He was gorgeously dressed, like the other priests and deacons who had paraded up to the castle for the occasion of the King’s birthday, and–she scrunched up her nose–he fairly reeked of frankincense.

“Shioni, personal slave to Princess Annakiya,” he said, consulting the scroll in front of him, “of foreign birth, purchased for one talent of pure silver, no less, at five years of age. Please confirm your name. And speak up, girl, my ears are not what they used to be.”

“I–I am Shioni, my Lord.”

He tapped the scroll, giving her a friendly smile. “I neither growl nor bite–well, only when I’m feeling grumpy. Not today. How old are you?”

“Eleven, sir. I think.”

His red velveteen robes were decorated with such a weight of gold brocade that the cloth stood in stiff folds, rather than hanging loosely. Only the High Priest himself wore more splendid attire than this. Shioni wondered how someone could move under such heavy clothes. Never mind surviving the heat!

“What happened to your eye?”

“Training with the warriors, sir.”

“Mama Nomuula stitched that, or I miss my mark,” he noted, correctly. Shioni touched the spot self-consciously. “She has a deft hand. It’ll heal almost without a scar, I think.”

“Yes, sir.”

What if she told him there was a monster python somewhere beneath his feet, Shioni wondered? She had not forgotten, even amongst the bustle of preparations. Mama Nomuula had been driving her slave-girls from dawn to dusk and beyond to ensure the castle was in perfect condition to receive guests.

The Archivist jotted several notes on the scroll. “You are the Princess’ bodyguard and companion?”

“I take weapons training, yes–what is that you are writing with?”

The kindly eyes considered her more closely. “It is a reed-pen and ink, Shioni. Different to the quill pen I assume your mistress writes with. Am I to understand you can read?”

“No sir,” she lied quickly. “It is against the law.”

“That it is,” said the Archivist, jotting something quickly on another, smaller scroll. After a few minutes, he signed it with a flourish. “But you will find that not all in Sheba is as one might expect.” Reaching inside the neck of his robes, he drew out his slave-necklet and briefly showed it to her.

Shioni gasped. “But… sir! I don’t understand!”

He picked the scroll up and blew softly on the ink. “There was a time before the King’s law against slaves being taught to read and write. I find one cannot unlearn what one already knows, even if a King commands it.”

With a practised movement, he rolled up the scroll and sealed it with a wax seal. “This is the official record of your ownership, Shioni of Sheba. Give it to your mistress, the Princess.”

Bowing her head, Shioni accepted the scroll. She decided to risk the question that was burning in her heart. “Sir, are you saying slaves can be freed?”

“That is also illegal.” But the Archivist’s eyebrows twitched as if to suggest his displeasure with this law. “You are a truly expensive young lady. One whole talent of silver! I hope the King knew what he was getting when he bought you.”

A blush stole up Shioni’s cheeks. “I try not to cause too much offence.”

“No, no, I meant it in a good way! I don’t care that you’re a ferengi–” his smile creased up his whole face again, “–or a slave, or a girl. Trust an old man, Shioni. You need to chase your dreams to catch them. And don’t let your position as a slave stop you.”

Shioni studied her toes, feeling baffled and buffeted by the ideas he had put into her head.

“You are dismissed,” he said. “Until we meet again.”

“My Lord.” She bowed deeply.

She left the short interview convinced he was a very peculiar man indeed.

Why tell her those things? Why call her ‘famous’? Simply a nonsense! Had he suggested the King regretted purchasing her in the first place? No… and her glib lie hadn’t fooled him in the slightest. He knew very well she could read and write. Was he trying to encourage her? Surely not.

Well, she had better hurry. Mama Nomuula’s enormous pots had been bubbling and spitting and spreading the most delicious smells around the castle for several days now. They had gobbled up chickens, goats and whole cows. A team of twenty slaves had been occupied chopping onions, peeling garlic and washing sweet potatoes by the bucket-load. Mmm–just smell that garlic, cardamom, sweet cloves and hot berbere, Mama’s own special blend of eighteen spices! Her step quickened. It was going to be a wonderful feast!

But as she crossed the courtyard, a group of older slave-girls who were setting up long trestle tables for the feast, saw her coming and quickly blocked her path.

“Hsst, ferengi! Where you going?”

“Hyena-breath! Wait up!”

One of the girls grabbed her shoulder. “Too high and mighty to talk to us, are we? Well, working for the Princess doesn’t make you any less a slave!”

“Where’s your holiday dress, slave-girl?”

Dismay stole her tongue. Princess Annakiya hadn’t given her anything to wear for the feast, not even an old cast-off. And Yeshi, her least favourite of the older slave-girls, knew that as well as everyone else.

“Only these old rags?” teased the bigger girl. “Obviously the Princess likes to keep her little ferengi beggar in rags.” Cruelly, she yanked at the neckline of Shioni’s tunic until the cloth ripped. “There. Now you look like a proper beggar.”

Before she knew it, Shioni’s dagger was in her fist. The girls shrieked.

“She’s got a knife! Watch out!”

“SHIONI!” Mama Nomuula’s bellow silenced them all. “Come and stir pots! You girls–are those tables laid yet?”

“Get you later!” hissed Yeshi.

Shioni tucked the dagger into her belt almost as quickly as it had appeared, feeling mutinous and ashamed at having risen to the bait. Now Mama Nomuula was mad at her too. And not even the prospect of a half-day holiday after the feasting would mend that. She stamped off to the kitchen, where she stirred the pots so ferociously that Mama Nomuula had to chide her again.

Chapter 11: The Captain’s Coffee

LATER THAT EVENING, AFTER the first day of feasting had wound to its conclusion, Shioni knocked on the doorpost of Prince Bekele’s quarters.

“Enter!”

Picking up a small coal stove by the handles, she pushed aside the heavily-brocaded hangings with her shoulder and stepped sideways into his room.

The Prince, Annakiya’s older brother and next in line for the throne, was lounging in a comfortable leather chair, talking to someone whose back was to the door. She was to perform the coffee ceremony for him and his guest.

Shioni set the stove down in a corner, and set about preparing the coffee. A low table held six tiny porcelain cups, a pot of honey, a mound of green coffee beans of the finest quality, a tiny bowl of frankincense, and a long-necked clay jebena for heating water. She touched the jebena and burned the tip of her finger. Perfect. Shioni sprinkled incense on the red-hot coals, releasing a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. Kneeling, she picked up a small iron skillet, emptied the green beans into it, and carefully settled it onto the coals. She fanned the stove to encourage the beans to roast quickly.

Then Prince Bekele’s guest spoke for the first time, and she had to grit her teeth to stop a groan from escaping. Captain Dabir! Thank heavens the dim corner hid her burning cheeks. Fancy having to run into him again, after so memorably inscribing herself on his scroll of slave-girls he would most like to kick given the chance…

Presently, as she shook the skillet repetitively, the beans began to hiss and spit and turn a lovely dark brown on all sides. The rich aroma of roasting coffee mingled with the incense to fill the room with a heady scent. Shioni lifted the hot skillet with a practised hand and brought it before the men so that they could inhale the coffee aromas.

“Slave,” said the Prince, “why are you not properly dressed for the coffee ceremony?”

Shioni was trying not to wrinkle her nose in disgust. One of the men must have stepped in manure, she thought. “My Lord Prince… these are my only clothes,” she said.

“Is it too much,” he asked scornfully, “to ask slaves of the King’s household to dress properly for their Prince? What do you think, Captain?”

“Unacceptable, of course. An insult.”

“Indeed.”

Shioni fled to her corner. She seated the jebena among the coals and placed a chip of wood in its tall, narrow neck, to help the water to boil quickly. She must serve the Prince without delay. But her hands were shaking. When she poured the beans into a wooden pestle in order to grind them, she spilled several on the floor.

“She’s as clumsy as she is ugly,” said Captain Dabir. “Who trained this one?”

“She belongs to my sister,” said Prince Bekele. “I should speak to her about the girl’s training. It is obviously lacking.”

Shioni’s ears were burning. She spooned the ground coffee into the long neck of the jebena with great care, hoping the men would return to their conversation.

“Slave! Come to me,” ordered the Captain. When Shioni was kneeling before him, he said, “You have offended our Prince, slave. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing, sir. Have you neither respect nor manners?”

“Nothing, sir.”

Her misery was clear; the Prince was chuckling behind her. “You have a fine way with dumb slaves, Captain Dabir!”

“And you’re filthy,” the Captain went on. “When last did you bathe, girl? This dry straw on your head is matted with dirt, just look, there’s a twig caught in the knots.”

“Obviously, my little sister doesn’t know how treat her possessions.”

“Indeed, Bekele. What a disgrace! Although it leaves a sour taste in my mouth even to talk about washing this ferengi filth. How does your sister tolerate such ugliness, day after day?”

The Prince affected a lazy drawl. “Oh, out of spite–the better to show off her own beauty, I suppose. I’ll grant Annakiya’s a pretty little thing, but like all girls, she’s a vain and silly creature.”

Captain Dabir’s answering laugh sounded much like a hyena’s cackle. “But this one is proud, my Prince. She once dared speak back to me. As if a stupid slave-girl could know anything about honour! I told my men to leave her in the well for a few hours. But the lesson didn’t stick.”

Shioni bit her lip hard to keep her self-pitying tears from welling up. So he had arranged for her to be trapped in the well! Rotten bully…

Prince Bekele laughed again. He had travelled up from Takazze for the King’s lavish birthday festivities. He had probably been acting for the King while the King was here, overseeing the castle works, she thought. This really was too dreadful. Not just the Captain, but the Prince as well! Did they all hate her? Was it what they thought–every time people saw her in the courtyard, or at work, or training–did they all think she was repulsive?

Annakiya wouldn’t see her like that–would she? The thought curdled her stomach.

“Girl!” The Captain’s foot prodded her arm. “Are you deaf as well as an idiot? I said, clean my boots!”

“At once, sir,” she whispered, making to untie the laces.

“Stop! I said, use your hair! Are you completely witless?”

A hideous chill seized Shioni, followed by a rush of heat pounding in her ears. No! He couldn’t mean it… there was mud and dung encrusted on the sides, so much of it… he was repeating the command, louder this time. She couldn’t bring herself to move. His shoes stank! Her whole body shuddered like a wind-swept leaf.

A boot scraped along her spine. “There, ferengi, I’ve started for you.”

It seemed that another person drew her long hair over her shoulder, that it was another who began to wipe the Captain’s boots; but she knew it was her own hot tears splashing down, and her stomach clenching at the stench of fresh manure so close to her bowed head.

But Captain Dabir was not finished yet.

Winking in the lantern light, a slim, cool dagger blade toyed with her cheek. “How sweet of you to use your tears to clean my boots,” he said. “Maybe we should just chop this straw off your head, eh? You’d look better shaven. The Prince would not have to be so offended by the sight of you.”

The Prince was laughing. “Oh stop, Dabir, have pity! You’re a cruel man.”

“Tough, my Prince, and loyal,” he said, and then turned his attention to Shioni, who was trying desperately not to flinch. “But that would still leave your ugliness, and that would offend me. A little slice here, a little slice there–what difference would it make?” The blade moved to her mouth. “I could cut off these lips and you’d be no uglier than–”

“Having a pleasant evening, Prince Bekele?”

A curt greeting, a heavy tread. The Prince and the Captain both sprang to their feet. Only fast reflexes saved Shioni from being tipped onto her nose. As it was, she found herself trapped like a bird in a cage of feet. She dared not move, nor could she have moved. Her worst nightmares could not have conceived of this humiliation. It was General Getu!

Chapter 12: A Different Lesson

FOR AN UNBEARABLE MOMENT, nobody breathed.

But then a strong hand raised her to her feet. “Good evening, Shioni. I will be joining these gentlemen for coffee. Would you prepare for a third? Thank you.”

Having almost floated over to the corner, where the jebena was bubbling away, Shioni suddenly paused, thunderstruck: Getu had not called her ‘girl’ or ‘slave’! He had greeted her before Captain Dabir! While her hands jerked back to their task with a mind of their own–preparing the tray of cups, spoons and honey–she risked a glance beneath her eyelashes at the men.

The General was acting as if the Captain didn’t exist. A gross insult to any Sheban! Wars had been fought over lesser offences. Captain Dabir’s face had turned pasty, as though he had eaten something rotten and had only just realised it.

Her hair smelled like a cowshed. How would she ever wash out this stench?

“Sit down,” General Getu said. “I’ll have that coffee now, Shioni.” Then, without further ado, he said: “Prince Bekele, you were not yet born when your grandfather was buried in the Church of the Holy Mother in Ma’rib. But I remember that day well. I was just a young man myself, not yet married, nor full of battles and years. When the King was killed, he left a big problem. Your father has a twin brother, and the King had not named which of the twin Princes was to be his successor.”

Shioni brought out the jebena and, kneeling before the General, spooned honey into the three tiny cups set out on the tray. Then she began to pour. The correct way was to pour from a height, so that the hot coffee burbled in the cup. Relief washed through her as she completed this task without spilling too much.

“Here, you’ve something caught in your hair, Shioni,” said the General, reaching out. She stiffened. He plucked something from her hair, and then, quite deliberately, dropped it into Captain Dabir’s cup! “There. Serve us.”

Shioni blinked. But nothing had fallen into the coffee! From her position, she could not have missed even the tiniest splash. Stars in heaven, the General had just pretended to drop horse manure into the Captain’s drink! She could barely contain the quivering of her hands as she passed the cups out. The evening was growing more bizarre by the second!

Not for the first time since she had come to Castle Asmat, she wondered if she wasn’t caught up in some strange dream.

“In those days the court was full of plotting and trickery,” the General continued, behaving as if nothing had happened. “So, years before, the King determined to keep secret which twin was firstborn. But then, your grandmother was poisoned. Of the midwives who delivered the twins, one died in old age and the other two met with strange and ill-timed accidents. Not long after, your grandfather died suddenly too. Which of the twins was the true King? Which should be crowned?”

“It was a crisis. The nobles and the generals began to take sides. Soon, there was talk of civil war within Sheba, of brother fighting brother. That would have torn the kingdom apart. Nations prey like lions upon those who show weakness. And the proud, noble Kings of Arabia made no secret of their jealousy at Sheba’s riches of gold, precious stones and incense, casting greedy eyes to the south of their desert kingdoms and sharpening their scimitars as they did so.”

“That was when your father, Prince Bekele, made a courageous decision. An amazing decision. He chose to leave all that he knew, and carve out for himself a kingdom on the western side of the Red Sea. He overthrew the weak, decadent King of Axum. He seized Axum’s trade and ports and ships and warriors. Now that–that is a story! Out of the ashes of the Axumite Kingdom, West Sheba was born.”

The General clapped his hands softly. “Another cup!”

“My Lord.” Shioni moved into the lamplight and began to serve the traditional second cup.

“Coffee is a blessing for the soul, not so, Bekele?” The General again leaned over to pick an imaginary speck out of her hair!

Captain Dabir’s voice sounded choked as he accepted his cup with a trembling hand. Shioni’s shoulders were trembling too as she struggled to bite down on a bubble of hysterical laughter. She scurried back to her place. Beneath her matted hair, her eyes rose to fix upon the spectacle playing out before her. When the Captain raised the cup to his lips he spilled coffee on his trousers, and his colour was taking on a definite greenish cast now.

“It’s hard to believe your father started with just three hundred warriors,” General Getu noted. Prince Bekele was so astonished by proceedings that his mouth was catching flies. “Now, his legacy stretches from the Red Sea to the Takazze River, and beyond. There are trade pacts from East Sheba to Kush, a growing capital city, silver flowing into the treasury, and the King rides an elephant into battle. It’s a great legacy he will leave to you one day, young man. The question is–what will you make of it?”

Bekele shifted as uncomfortably on his seat as Shioni thought he must feel.

“What kind of King would you like to be?”

“Strong,” said Bekele. “Strong, like my father. I will seek new conquests, and put these Wasabi unbelievers to the sword.”

“And what is a King’s strength?”

“He may measure his possessions, or warriors, or cities and castles, or the depth of his treasury,” the Prince replied, sounding as though he were reading off a scroll. “He might surround himself with good advisors, with friends of good character and vision. Men with experience–like yourself, General Getu.”

Bekele tried to smile casually, but he managed to appear nervous instead. Getu was clearly unmoved by his flattery. If anything, the General only seemed to become stiffer as a result. “But the people see his justice. Just as a king leads men into battle, so he should lead his people–fearlessly, favouring none, with a strong and just right hand.”

“Justice?” said the General. “How do you see that?”

Shioni could often listen to conversations by making herself ‘small’, as she liked to think about it. No-one took much notice of a slave. But here, she had the luxury of watching from a shadowed corner as the General grilled the Prince. It was gripping. It was slow torture…

Bekele smiled smugly. “Being not easily swayed, General. Treating all, both slave and free, in a right and lawful way. Setting the example in just conduct, and punishing injustice.”

“Ah,” said the General, with a crafty curl of his lip. “So tell me, Prince, what kind of example were you setting when you stood by and let the Captain abandon a young slave-girl down a well for hours? What kind of justice would you recommend for the man who gave that order?”

Captain Dabir gave a strangled gasp of horror.

“And when you sit by and watch a man ill-use a slave–who is a child, moreover–is that right or fair? We can all read our lessons, my Lord Prince. And you have obviously studied what it means to be a King. But it is quite another thing to act like one.”

Shioni could hardly believe her ears. The General was sticking up for her! Not only that, he was hauling the Prince of Sheba over the coals, making him squirm like an earthworm freshly hauled from the soil by a snapping beak.

At his nod, she quickly approached him to serve the third, and final, cup of coffee. Thick, oily liquid spilled into the cups. She set the jebena down.

The General leaned forward again! “I think you’ve got lice, Shioni,” he said, pretending to catch one between his fingers. He flicked it into the cup he was holding and turned to the Captain. “Coffee?”

Captain Dabir’s stomach heaved. Clapping both hands to his mouth, the Captain leaped to his feet and fled the room! Gagging noises echoed down the corridor.

General Getu blew on his steaming coffee before taking an appreciative sip. “This is fine coffee, thank you, Shioni. Just the way I like it.”

She bowed, daring neither to meet his eyes nor to utter a sound.

“You are dismissed.”

Chapter 13: The King’s Horse

“IT’S A MITE LATE for a jaunt down-valley,” said the stable hand, scratching his scraggly goatee as he led Shioni down the picket line. He peered short-sightedly at her. “You works for the Princess, have I right?”

“I do,” said Shioni, carefully neglecting to mention that she was doing this entirely without permission for the second time within two weeks. How could he mistake her? His eyesight had to be terrible. “I’m just riding down to Ginab and back. Urgent message.”

It was the perfect opportunity too. Four solid days of feasting for the King’s birthday had ended, and today the guests had been leaving Castle Asmat in their droves. She could hide amidst all the traffic–or so she hoped.

Her eye was caught by a chestnut stallion which was roughly tied some distance from the others. Despite its splendid lines, the horse looked skittish and wild of eye, gaunt in the flanks, and its coat badly needed a good brushing. She raised her chin. “Whose horse is that?”

“Oh, miss, ‘e’s a mad one alright! Arabian. Cost a King’s ransom ‘e did. Don’t you be going near ‘im, ‘e’s a biter and a kicker.”

“Broken to the saddle?”

“Once, maybe. But no more.” The man crossed himself and spat on the ground, to invoke God and ward off evil just in case. “Was a gift from the King of East Sheba, y’know, our good King’s brother. But ‘e gone madder than a wasp since crossing the Red Sea. Nobody dare ride ‘im now. Barely feed ‘im, y’know, like I throw food to ‘im.”

They proceeded down the line. “You wanting Star again?”

“She’ll do nicely,” said Shioni, looking back wistfully. The stallion looked sad.

“Maybe you can cheer ‘im, miss,” said the stable hand. “You’s having such a fine touch with them animals and all. I fancies you talks to them sometimes, I does. That a ferengi skill or what?”

“Er,” Shioni stalled. “Well I–”

“Darn clever anyways,” he said. “Ferengi magic says I. Well, if you’s wanting to help with ‘im, I’d welcome it. If you’s right proper careful and such. Can’t bear to see such a noble animal suffering.”

“Thanks. I will.”

Whatever could have happened to a horse to make it look like that? She had to help him, and maybe with her newfound ability to understand animals she might be able to do just that... but later. Right now she had another hard night’s riding ahead of her. And she was already exhausted before starting out, having been put to hauling rocks that afternoon on the building site while Princess Annakiya assisted Hakim Isoke with taking an inventory of the newly cleared storage rooms beneath the east wing of the castle.

“You be wanting no tack, miss?”

“No, I like riding bareback and my knees are enough. I’ve a rope halter in my bag.”

“Fine. Picket ‘er later, I’ll be sleeping most like.”

Once the chatty stable hand let her go, Shioni breathed a sigh of relief. She really didn’t enjoy lying. She clucked to the pony. “Down to Ginab Village, girl. You can run if you like.”

Star gave a little nicker of delight. Shioni caught the image of a happy foal playing in a lush mountain pasture. Then–true to her sweet nature–there came a strong sense that the pony really liked her as a rider.

“I like you too.” Shioni patted her neck.

Great galumphing elephants, now she was imagining whole conversations with her pony. Next she would be dancing around trees like that crazy man the warriors had driven off yesterday.

Shioni gave the pony her head. As they trotted down the valley away from the golden rays of a lowering sunset, the black basalt cliffs hugging the meadows seemed to draw back almost reluctantly. Star pushed along as eagerly as an animal half her age.

Lower down they entered a wood where the carpenters had been busy felling trees for the construction work at the castle. Beyond the wood, Shioni knew, the valley ended abruptly in a steep descent to the hills fringing the mountain. She would have to make that descent without the benefit of a full moon this time. The stream to her left was already burbling happily in anticipation of the downhill dash. Ginab Village was nestled in a loop of the stream, still a good height above the river plain.

The pony’s ears pricked up.

“What’s that?” Shioni turned, listening carefully. “What did you hear?”

She caught a picture of a person from the pony.

There were a few isolated huts along the valley, home to poor farmers and hunters Hakim Isoke referred to as ‘peasants’, spitting the ‘p’ as though she had tasted something sour. ‘Once they see the castle, they’ll multiply like fleas,’ Annakiya’s tutor had added. ‘Protection is valuable, as is the commerce the castle will bring.’ Shioni, silently kneeling in her corner, had not understood the entire lesson she had overheard. Still, it was clear to her that Isoke had a high opinion of Sheban culture and not much of an opinion about anyone else’s.

Shioni directed Star through the trees toward the stream. “This way.”

“Help me!”

Pushing her way through some low bushes, Shioni came across a girl of about her own age curled up at the base of pine tree. A pair of wide brown eyes stared uncertainly at her.

The girl rubbed her eyes. “I must be seeing angels… am I dead?”

“I’m as real as you are,” said Shioni, more crossly than she had intended. “I am called Shioni. What’s your name? What’s the matter?”

“A-Are you asmati?”

“No! I work up at Castle Asmat. Now tell me your name.”

“Selam. I’ve been out here two days… I think I broke my ankle near the river. Are you sure you’re not–”

“Look, if you weren’t hurt I’d pinch you,” Shioni said, thinking that now she had to help this girl, she wouldn’t reach the lion’s cave in time and might indeed land in hot water upon her return. But the thought left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth, like yellow curd. She could have spat at herself. Of course she would help!

“I guess angels aren’t so touchy,” said Selam, with a hesitant smile. “Are you an albino?”

Shioni liked her immediately. She had a gentle smile and a sweet, open face framed by the tight, intricate shuruba braids women seemed to favour in the mountains.

“Look, I am a slave of Sheba,” she said, indicating her necklet. “I–uh, well, I come from a faraway land. Let’s take a look at your ankle.”

Her ankle was hot, swollen, and sitting at an impossible angle. Shioni did not dare touch it, but instead, whistled between her teeth. “What did you do, kick a tree?”

Selam laughed. “Almost as silly as that, Shioni. I was playing near the river when I fell off a small bank and caught my foot between two rocks.”

“We should get you to your home.”

Selam had never been on a pony before. But between them, they managed to lift her onto Star. On their way to her home on the far side of the wood, Shioni emptied her pockets of a bread crust and a handful of dried spiced grain, which Selam ate as though her life depended on it. They chatted like old friends the whole way. Selam had four older brothers, two of whom worked at the castle as carpenters, she learned. Her mother had died but her father was alive. A shadow crossed her face as she spoke of her father, and Shioni wondered at this.

Home was two huts–a large one for living in and a small hut for sheltering animals from the fierce mountain storms, which Shioni had not yet experienced as it was dry season. They were round, mud-and-stick huts with a conical roof thatched with heather and moss. A wooden fence surrounded the huts, for keeping animals in. But as they approached the gate, Shioni could hear voices raised in anger.

“Tell me which is worse, the Shebans or the Wasabi?” someone was shouting.

“I’d rather have the Sheban yoke myself!”

“But yoke it is!” shouted the first voice. “If you want to be yoked like a dumb ox–!”

“Now is not the time to rebel, Desta! These Shebans are too strong.”

“Hush! Someone comes!”

By this time they were at the gate, and Selam was innocently calling out a greeting to her brother, Desta. Astonishment, followed by fear and anger, played across his features as he came out to meet her. Selam was chattering away like a magpie about how she had been rescued. She was so excited with her pony ride! But the men at Desta’s shoulder were not equally happy. Shioni recognised several faces amongst their number. And the implications of what they had been arguing about were beginning to make sense–rather too much sense–to her.

“Where’s our father?” Selam was asking.

“Inside, drunk as usual,” said Desta, flatly. Selam’s face fell. “Sleeping.”

“Oh dear God, save us!” hissed one of the men. “It’s the ferengi from the castle. She works for the Princess!”

“How lovely!” smiled Selam. “You didn’t tell me that, Shioni. I bet you can tell me lots of stories about–Desta! What are you doing?”

What Desta was doing, was holding a knife to Shioni’s throat! “She’s heard too much.”

Everyone seemed to be shouting at once, but Desta would not be deterred. He moved closer, gripping her arm with one hand and keeping the knife steady with the other.

“Desta, you have to take your sister to Mama Nomuula,” said Shioni, trying to keep from shaking. Having a knife at her throat was a new and most unpleasant experience for her. “I’ve seen her set plenty of breaks like that one. If you don’t, she might never walk or work properly again.”

“Hold your tongue, slave!” he snarled.

“Desta!” cried his sister.

“Let me go!” He shouldered her aside roughly. “Don’t you see you’ve ruined everything coming here with her?”

Another, older man caught Selam as she fell backward with a cry of pain. “Killing is not our way, Desta!”

“Desta.” Only a whisper, but it silenced them all. The squabbling men drew apart, letting an old woman into the circle. “I sense an ill spirit in the wind. Has it overcome you?”

Shioni stared. It was the old woman, the arogit, from Ginab Village! She was an ancient, tiny slip of a woman, so withered and bent that her head came barely to Shioni’s shoulder. Her face was lined like the oldest of Annakiya’s scrolls. But most unusually of all, her eyes were as blue as the sky, and as bright as if all the life that had faded from her body now shone out of them. How had she even managed to walk from the village to here?

Shamefaced, Desta dropped his dagger, but he was still muttering and complaining under his breath. Shioni’s whole body breathed a sigh of relief.

“What’s your name, girl?” said the old woman, leaning on her stick and shuffling closer.

“Shioni.”

“On your way… yes, beyond Ginab even?” Shioni nodded uneasily. How did she know that? “So you found our Selam… hmm. A life-debt owed. None from her family missed her for two days? How is that?”

Desta’s answer was to shuffle his feet. “But what should we do, my mother?” he said. “What wisdom can you give us?”

“So impatient,” said the old woman. “Well. Hopefully a look will set your hearts at ease. Give me your hands, girl. Don’t worry…”

Taking Shioni’s hands in her knotted old fingers, she turned her face to the skies. Her eyes fluttered until only the whites showed. A strange sensation seemed to be tickling the edge of Shioni’s mind. She must be a wise woman! Shioni had heard about wise women from Mama Nomuula, but never actually met one. In the mountains, the wise women had even more power than tribal chiefs. Mama had added that while witches were bad, wise women were always good.

“Ah,” she said, coming back from wherever she had gone. “While there is much to fear and much to expect from this one, her heart is true. Desta, you should be fine if you just leave her alone.”

Leaving Desta gaping and Shioni bemused, the old woman gave a chuckle and moved off. She had almost disappeared into the hut when she threw over her shoulder: “I would let her go if I were you.”

Desta was clearly very unhappy but helpless in the face of the arogit’s bizarre proclamation.

Not long after, Shioni was waving to Selam one last time. Desta was trudging up the valley to the castle, carrying his sister on his back. The ox-carts and horse-carts she had become used to from the plains seemed absent up here, she realised. These people had so little in comparison to the plains-dwellers. And they had no love of Sheba! How would she carry this secret in her heart, when it could lead to huge trouble for Princess Annakiya, Mama, and the others?

No predictions for the future? No wisdom for the road? The wise woman had simply told Desta to stay out of her way! The idea was so very mundane, she felt slighted. No ‘you will not be a slave forever, Shioni’? Or, ‘you are secretly a Princess’… Shioni laughed at her fancies. What kind of a wise woman was she?

She directed Star’s nose to the east. It was growing late.

Chapter 14: A Rip-Roaring Adventure

SEVERAL HOURS AFTER MIDNIGHT, Shioni dismounted. The night air finally felt cool–for days now, the dry season heat had been baking in the days and lingering into the night. Every evening was hotter and muggier than the last, while the overheated air hardly seemed to stir. She hoped Mama Nomuula had been able to attend to Selam. Mama always complained about how difficult ankle injuries were, and how slow to heal properly–if at all.

Shioni grimaced. Some clever tracker she was. More like a brainless sheep! In the darkness she had completely missed her landmarks and ridden right past the lion’s cave and on down the trail. She had eventually realised her mistake and turned around, but had already lost a great deal of time.

She tethered Star on a long rope to the old, lightning-split acacia. “Wait here. This shouldn’t take long.” The pony replied with an image of tall, sweet grass. Shioni patted her neck. “Fill up and rest. We’ve the ride back to come.”

She slipped from shadow to shadow towards the lion’s den. A band of clouds across the moon was making her task nearly impossible. She wished she could have checked for tracks, but it was too dark and she had been unable to take a lamp this time. She had only her eyes and ears, and they were telling her it was still. Almost too still.

Shioni checked the throwing-knives at her belt, then the long dagger she used in place of a sword. Herbs and potions in her bag. Hopefully Mama Nomuula wouldn’t miss them before morning. Water gourd…

The lion’s plight had eaten deeper and deeper into her thoughts while the dancing, feasting and merriment wound on and on, and the slaves worked their fingers to the bone for the nobles’ and priests’ enjoyment. She eased her shoulders. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the rhythm of the heavy stick used to pound dried spice-pods and imagine chopping vegetables by the cart load. One day she had slaughtered, plucked and prepared over a hundred chickens. Pots? Were there so many pots in the world? But at least the slaves had been allowed to eat well. Her stomach was grateful for that!

Was the lion still lying there? Would she smell only death when she entered its lair? She doubted it would recover. After all, hyena jaws were powerful enough to crack the bones of an elephant. But it still didn’t make sense. Why would any hyena attack a large male lion, even one injured by a hunter’s arrow?

For the umpteenth time, she wondered if she wasn’t going insane. Her newfound ability to listen to animals, while scary and smacking of witchcraft or asmati-work, was also addictive. She had to keep it hidden or be branded a witch. The sensible part of her wanted it to stop, but she found she craved trying to see what she could do. Maybe she should confront the elephants? Or had she simply imagined a trunk inserting a key into her mind...?

She should worry about explanations later.

That lion was huge. Shioni had seen a few, but never from close up. Last time had been too close. She paused, seeking to penetrate the shadows in the narrow defile that led to its lair.

Suddenly, a searing pain ripped across her left shoulder. A terrible blow spun her right around. Sky, rocks, an earth-shaking roar; she was lying on her back, whimpering, and now a hot breath wafted across her cheek, the musky reek of a male lion, and fangs flashed near her throat.

“No!” she cried out. “Please!”

The fangs gripped the soft skin of her throat delicately. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now!”

“I… I…” The shock was too great.

“Ah!” the fangs withdrew. “Your scent… I know you! You were in my cave. I thought I dreamed.”

“Guilty,” Shioni managed in a whisper, clutching her wound. She couldn’t keep the shredded muscle together. There was an alarming amount of blood seeping between her fingers. This time she had gone too far. She should have told Mama Nomuula where she was going–would they even find her body? Would Selam or Desta have told her? But they only knew about Ginab Village…

“You’ve a mane like a lion,” puzzled her attacker. “Are you a human cub? What is your name? Is your den in the stone house with the other human creatures?” Whiskers tickled her cheek. “What is this leaking of water, cub?”

“Crying? I am… Shioni.”

The moon chose that moment to break free of the bank of clouds and bathe the scene in cold brilliance. The great lion sat back on his haunches and regarded her with tawny eyes so deep and wise that they seemed almost sorrowful. His size was formidable; the distinctive black ruff of his mane, majestic. His intense gaze seemed to burn into her heart and mind, stripping them bare. Shioni had never in her life felt quite so little. Not even standing beside an elephant.

She could hear him wonderfully well. Her ears were hearing a language she should never have understood. Her brain was transforming it into speech. But while she comprehended it at one level, at another, their interaction resonated with nuances and undercurrents she did not yet grasp.

“Shioni?” he rumbled, at length. “That is an admirable name. Here,” he said, moving forward to nuzzle the hand covering her shoulder, “do not be afraid. Remove your paw. Let me tend your wound.”

A remarkably rough tongue rasped over the broken skin. A glint of white bone showed in several of the four slashes from the lion’s claws, Shioni saw, and rightly, she should be fainting from the pain. But his tongue seemed to soothe rather than scrape. Her whole arm was tingling now. At his urging she raised herself onto her elbow, so that he could reach behind her shoulder blade. The tingling started there too.

Understanding blossomed within her. The lion had healed so quickly, even from the severe wounds he had suffered from the hyenas and from the hunter’s arrow which had stuck deep in his chest. However, healing herbs and food forced down his throat was no explanation for this miraculous recovery. It must be magic.

She had helped him, now he was healing her.

Shioni’s eyes were agog, huge with wonder. The lion padded in lithe circles, flexing his claws impatiently as she examined her shoulder.

“Do not use your limb for several days,” he cautioned. “The bleeding has stopped, but you will always bear my mark. Bear it with pride.”

“You… who are you? What are you?”

“Who are you, human cub, that you boldly enter the lion’s lair?” he growled back. “As for me, I am called Anbessa. I am the Lord of all Lions, and ruler of these mountains.” And with this he lifted his head to the stars and roared a shattering roar!

Shioni found herself backed up against a boulder, as far away from Anbessa as she could be. Her ears were ringing, and her heart thumped madly against her ribs.

Narrowing his eyes to slits, the lion demanded, “Answer my questions! Why do your people make a den beneath Kalcha’s curse? Why is your mane like a lion’s?”

Quite unexpectedly, Shioni’s anger flared like wildfire. Why, this lion was nothing but a big bully, thundering at her like this! She pushed off the rock. “Stop snarling at me!”

Anbessa’s lips curled up over his dagger-like canines, but his snarl was mixed with laughter. “Showing your teeth, little cub?” He seemed oddly pleased. “Then speak.”

Shioni explained about her origins; about her owner, and the strangeness of the castle, infested with snakes; how the workers had become afraid of witchcraft because of the many accidents. Just the day before, a wall had collapsed, killing six slaves and a warrior. Mama Nomuula had more snakebite cases than she could deal with. She related her encounter with the python and her strange faint in the elephant pen. Then, at Anbessa’s urging, she backtracked to the hyena-pack, and why she had returned to treat his wounds. “I could not leave you,” she finished. “I feared the warriors would return for their trophy. Indeed, you should leave this place. The warriors will come.”

“So, your people do not practice witchcraft?” asked the lion.

“We hate witchcraft!”

“Then how is it you speak to me? And to the four-hoof? Are you a witch–Shioni?”

“Me?” she squeaked, realising he must have been stalking her. Somewhere in the shadows, predatory, slit yellow eyes–and she hadn’t sensed a thing. “No way! No, I told you, I don’t know why... or how.”

Anbessa nodded, seeming satisfied.

“I hear you, Shioni. Now hear me too. There is a power of witchery over your stone den. It is the power of Kalcha, the witch-leader of the Wasabi. The Wasabi sacrifice their children to feed her power. The python beneath the tree may well be one of her servants. Red eyes? That is a hallmark of her power. The power of a witch is in the eyes.”

“The hyenas that attacked me belonged to Kalcha. Her Wasabi worship the hyena. Her kind and mine have battled since ancient times, but now, since Kalcha’s power has grown, the battle goes ill with us.”

“We’ll help you!”

Her outburst did not seem to move him. He demanded, “And how will a slave change the course of Sheba?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or best this mighty Wasabi witch?

“I don’t know–but I will try!”

The lion showed his great canines again. “I see much of a lion in your spirit, Shioni of Sheba,” he rumbled, prowling towards her again with fluid, muscular menace. Her every instinct was screaming at her to flee, but her feet remained rooted.

He said, “You should return to your den to rest. You have lost much blood. As for me, I will heed your warning. You will not find me here again.”

Abruptly, Anbessa turned away.

“Wait! Please… I have so many questions.”

His yellow eyes blinked over his shoulder. “We will meet again.”

“Anbessa, if you ever need any help–I mean, you’re awfully mighty and a king too, but–”

The eyes were positively gleaming now. “I will roar your name in the night, human cub.” Again, he made to move off.

“But–your name just means ‘lion’ in the old tongue.”

“I am the Lion, Shioni. Think upon that. Now remember, the power of a witch–”

“–is in the eyes. But, Anbessa!”

“Yes?” In the shadows, only his great canines caught a gleam of moonlight.

“What does my name mean? You didn’t say.”

“It means a human who asks questions like a persistent itch I can’t reach!” He chuckled at her expression. “In Lion, ‘Shioni’ means… let’s see… it means ‘Graceful Strength of the Dawn’. A fine name for a human cub.”

And in two huge bounds, he was lost in the night.

Chapter 15: What Kind of a Friend are You?

MAMA NOMUULA BRANDISHED HER arms like battering rams and roared, “I’s a-having the truth from you or I’s locking you in the pantry for a month, you stubborn, willful… you infuriating… oh! You’s gonna be the death of me, Shioni!”

Mama could have made ten of her with plenty to spare. When she became enraged, which was not often, she reminded Shioni of a rogue elephant she had once seen break loose from the King’s menagerie and thunder down the main avenue of Takazze, scattering the crowd like a flock of panicked sparrows. As the story went, once when riled by a warrior, Mama had picked him up by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his trousers and tossed him out of a window. She could believe that–easily!

Shioni hung her head, not daring to look at either of her friends. She peeked out of Annakiya’s window. Dawn out there, and the fiery furnace of friendship in here. To tell the truth, she was a little afraid of Mama in this kind of mood.

“You are so selfish!” stormed Annakiya. “I can’t believe you! Honestly! Fancy coming back looking like you’ve been trampled by a hippopotamus! Fancy sneaking off in the first place. Ginab Village? You rotten little liar! What kind of a friend are you?”

“It was the lion.”

“Only a lion? Pah!” Mama Nomuula threw up her hands in disgust. “Next time it’ll rip your head right off your stupid shoulders! The horrors I’s been put through this night, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Didn’t your mama teach you nothing?”

Suddenly she covered her face and began to sob loudly! Shioni could only stare, appalled by the storm she had started.

She wailed, “But you ain’t got no mama… but me… and I can’t take no proper care of no girl that’s given me… oh, God! Not again!”

Between sobs and pauses for profuse nose-blowing, Annakiya and Shioni learned that Mama Nomuula’s family had all been captured by slavers many years earlier.

“We was taken in a ship along the coast, far, far from home,” she told them. “We was many days, stopping here, stopping there. We wasn’t fed much, so many slaves got sick. I’s not needing much extra feeding so I was fine–not good, just surviving. Then one night a storm blows up from nowhere and before you knows it, the waves came crashing all over the deck and the slaves are screaming and a-crying for their chains to be unlocked. The men was chained to the decks, the women to each other or to their children. We was driven to the rocks. My husband, his chains took him down with the ship. My girls and I got hold of a piece of wood. But the waves was too strong. We was beat against those rocks over and over… and I couldn’t keep them from being smashed! Not even with these arms God’s a-given me…”

She rocked back and forth, keening softly.

Annakiya crept into Mama Nomuula’s arms first and drew them around her. She made furious faces at Shioni until she, too, found a place on Mama’s ample lap. “We’re your girls,” the Princess whispered.

“Your girls,” Shioni echoed. “I’m sorry, Mama–I promise I’ll never do that to you again. No more lions.”

Mama Nomuula’s arms suddenly clasped them so tight that both girls squealed. Great gales of laughter forced their way through her tears. Now she couldn’t stop. She laughed until she wheezed that her sides were hurting, and the more Shioni and Annakiya questioned her, the more she laughed. Finally, she gasped, “No more lions, Shioni? Fat chance! And Annakiya, my precious Princess–if you’s my girl, you just made me Queen of Sheba!”

Annakiya’s response was a hilarious combination of a gasp and a chuckle.

“Queen Mama,” said Shioni. “Sounds perfect. With the authority vested in me as the lowest of slave-girls in the mighty Kingdom of West Sheba, I hereby declare–”

“Declare anything you like,” cried the Princess, entering into the fun, “and I shall make it so.”

Mama would make a fine Queen. Finding herself unexpectedly choked up for words, Shioni settled for hugging Mama as tightly as she could. But her shoulder twinged as though someone had stuck her with a pin, right where the lion had clawed it open. Mama Nomuula disengaged herself from Shioni’s arms and then pinned her with a fiercely rolling eye.

“Right,” she growled. Shioni imagined she was thinking about rolling up her sleeves and pounding her like dough on her bread-board–maybe harder, or with a handy rolling pin. “Out with it, you rascal! Where’s you hurt this time? And just you be telling us the whole story. I’ll have none of your monkey tales or half tales or no other kinds of tales, or so help me–”

“Did you treat Selam’s ankle?” asked Shioni.

“You didn’t drag that poor girl along on this sheep-brained adventure too?”

“Of course not, Mama. I found her long before the lion found me.”

Mama rolled her eyes. “God, please grant this child ten angels in heaven, because one ain’t nearly enough!”

“I suppose I should start with this,” said Shioni, pulling the neckline of her tunic aside until her bare shoulder slipped into the soft dawn light.

Annakiya, eying the furrowed wound in alarm, gasped, “Make that twenty!”

“He was a nice lion,” Shioni said, rather weakly.

“And when Mama and I have finished thumping the stuffing out of you until you’re flatter than that mattress on my bed, I’ve something to show you.” The Princess sat Shioni down rather grimly on the stool beside her dressing table. “Now speak, you disobedient, but rather wonderful; runaway, but run-right-back-again; chewed-up like a lion’s toy, sorry excuse for a slave-girl!”

Chapter 16: Reading the Scrolls

“TRUMPET FANFARE PLEASE!” PRINCESS Annakiya shoved open a large iron-banded door and ushered Shioni within. She winced as Annakiya unwittingly patted her sore shoulder.

The room was not large, but it was crammed to the ceiling with rack upon rack of scrolls. More piles of scrolls had been tossed haphazardly between the racks. Everything was covered in centuries of dust.

Shioni imagined the room must have been abandoned in a hurry. There was a scholar’s writing desk in one corner with several quills standing ready in a metal pot on its corner, and a scroll half-unfurled across its surface, as if the scribe had been interrupted in the middle of his work.

“Heaven in a room for you, right?”

The Princess clapped her hands. “Just look at all these records! Father was so excited to receive the plans for the castle! He’s found two armouries already, and a treasure room.”

“You found the plans? And my–”

“Nothing about your secret passage under the baobab! But, who knows what we might find in here? Some of the scrolls are even written on papyrus rather than parchment, they’re that old! And they’re all in such good condition–no rats, no insects, no mould…”

“You are excited, aren’t you?” Shioni smiled at her friend.

“Then you’ll help me sort through this mess?”

Shioni glanced toward the doorway. “I’m not supposed to be able to read, remember?”

“Dratted laws,” said Annakiya, scowling. Then she smiled sweetly. “Very well, I have just the idea. You do the sweeping, dusting and tidying, and I’ll do the reading.”

“Not fair!”

As they dug through the piles of scrolls that morning they discovered most were unbearably dull: inventories of supplies, records of patrol movements, visits of nobles and important people, and the names and deeds of the warriors of the castle. But in several places Annakiya found references to gold and silver mines which had been worked by the builders of the castle, and in another record, a reference to the ‘great treasuries’ of the King of Axum. This was new information–while she knew of many legends, she told Shioni, to find them confirmed in writing was excellent news. The King would be pleased.

“My guess is that this castle was built by the Nubians,” she added, with rising excitement, “or even by the Egyptians, who built the great pyramids after all. It may be five hundred years old! I wonder how the Axumites captured it?”

“This one is interesting,” said Shioni. “It says the original name of the castle was ‘Hiwot’–which sounds a lot like the old word for ‘life’, doesn’t it?”

Annakiya snatched the scroll from her. “Don’t let them catch you reading!”

“Just dusting it off,” she said innocently, puffing a cloud of musty-smelling dust at her friend.

“Yuck! Stop that!” She sneezed three times, each time more violent than the last. “Mama Nomuula’s right about you, you’re just a troublemaker.”

“Did you know she’s a ferengi too?”

The Princess made a silly face. “Shioni, whose thoughts are circling with the eagles now? Don’t tell me you never noticed! She’s so fat she can’t even ride a horse! How many Sheban women do you know who are built like her?”

“Well, I noticed… sort of. It’s hardly the most important thing about her, is it?”

“Thinking with our stomach again, are we?”

“Anni, you take that back! I do not think with my stomach! Yes, I love Mama’s cooking, but–”

“Isoke is always telling me to take smaller portions.” Annakiya imitated her tutor, “’It’s not ladylike. No Princess stuffs their mouth like that, Annakiya!’ Manners, ha. Always manners. As if she or Father think of anything but who I am to marry one day.”

Shioni suddenly felt sorry for her friend. Imagine being expected to do nothing but marry who your father told you to? In some ways, she had more freedom as a slave! Freedom to talk to lions, she thought, flexing her tender shoulder, and freedom to be stuck down wells by cruel warriors. All those times she had been jealous of Annakiya played in a shameful procession through her mind. Princesses had their problems too; just different ones.

Chapter 17: Mama Makes a Plan

SUDDENLY, SHIONI BECAME AWARE that Mama Nomuula had swept into the room, carrying a tray of delicious-looking goodies. “Girl,” she said, “don’t get your face stuck like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like you sat on a wasp.”

Annakiya giggled. “Mmm, what smells so good, Mama?”

“None for you,” said Mama Nomuula. “It’s not ladylike to drool over your food. Now, girls, you’s been stuck–don’t groan, Annakiya, what if Isoke heard you? You’s been a-hunting in this dusty store too long without my good food in your stomachs. Heavens, it’s nearly dinner time and what you been thinking?”

“Ooh, many things, Mama.”

“Annakiya, you’s asking to be put over my knee–Princess or no Princess, it’s no matter to me. You too, Shioni. You can’t eat scrolls!”

Between bites, the girls told Mama Nomuula what they had discovered.

“I’s been thinking all day in my hot kitchen,” said Mama, wiping some imaginary sweat off her neck. At the same time, she lifted Shioni’s sleeve to check her wounded arm. “The villagers said nothing about no mountain witch, but they sure twitched like naughty boys caught stealing when I was talking to them.”

“Father cares nothing for witchcraft,” said Annakiya.

“Exactly.” Mama beckoned them closer and lowered her voice. “Matter of fact, when he was leaving for Takazze, I heard him speaking to the warriors. He don’t believe in no witches, nor magic, nor dragons and such… and said he won’t have ‘that women’s chatter and foolishness in his castle’, or suchlike. I’s best be watching my tongue then, hadn’t I? That’s what I thought. You too, both of you. The King said he’d punish any such gossip good and proper.”

“But Mama–”

“No crazy elephants or magic talking lions from you, Shioni.” Mama made the sign of a cross with her fingers, just as the priests did it. “Though God save us, I never seen such cuts as yours heal so fast. And no impossible red-eyed pythons neither.”

Shioni plonked down the scroll she was holding. “Mama! I’m telling the truth, you’ve got to believe me! And even if you don’t, how many snakes are there crawling around this castle? It’s not natural! And the hyenas–”

“Girl, you’s steaming more than one of my pots!”

“–they’re saying that when the witch comes, they’ll eat our bones!”

Mama Nomuula drew Shioni into her arms. “Honey, shh. Don’t you be wound up so tight! And don’t you be wriggling out of my arms neither. You need love–all creatures do.”

“Humph! There are enough bone-crushing hyenas around this castle without you crushing me with your hugs, Mama!”

But she really didn’t mind, even when her friends were fuming at her, as she deserved. A cold shiver tickled her spine. After all, it could have gone much, much worse with Anbessa…

She kissed Mama Nomuula on her cheek. “That’s for making you cry earlier.”

“Honey, that water’s far down the river already,” said Mama, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. “Now, as I was saying: I’s been a-chewing all day, so much I feels like a cow chewing her cud. It’s a mighty strange story. But this old nose smells something more–I mean, you don’t just meet this Lord of the Lions without there being some reason. He didn’t stop to pass the time of day. He gave you a name. A name, like some huge pair of shoes you got to grow into!”

Shioni’s eyebrows crawled upwards. What an idea! What a picture! But Mama was rushing on like a storm blowing across the plains.

“That wise-woman of Ginab’s a queer one. Just wait until I nabs her! She might as well just push that young man off the path into a bush, for all she said. I’s thinking the rest is just wise woman mumbo-jumbo. We knows you’s a troublemaker. Why dress it up?”

After taking in their sober nods, Mama continued, “Now this Kalcha witch we don’t know. The warriors haven’t found her. But if this Anbessa says there’s a witch, then I thinks she’s as real as them scars on your arm, Shioni. And she don’t mean us no good. In my country I’s heard of such wickedness, Shioni, of witches controlling people and animals… it makes me shudder and a-shiver all over just to think of all that evil there in the mountains, and all around us.”

Shioni and Annakiya exchanged glances of dismay. Mama Nomuula was scared! The room seemed to grow darker, and Shioni found herself checking the corners and under the table to see that nothing was hiding there, waiting to pounce.

“But how can we warn the King?” asked Annakiya, who had turned pale. “I can only imagine how mad Father would be… his face goes so purple when he’s angry.”

“We can’t,” said Mama. “No, he’s gone back to Takazze, and that brute Dabir’s in charge.”

“But we have to do something!”

Mama Nomuula nodded solemnly. “Yes, Shioni, for the sake of everyone here in the castle, we must. Sheba is in our hands.”

“Well, I can do my best to find something in all these records,” Annakiya said stoutly. “I already found two armouries, didn’t I? And heaps of treasure!”

Shioni grinned at her friend. Trust Annakiya to look for answers in a fusty old scroll! But there could be months of work in this room alone, and Kalcha was already plotting their ruin. No, there must be something more they could do…

“You did, honey,” said Mama. “But I’s bothered. One thing you told us, Shioni, just don’t add up.”

“Nothing adds up, Mama! I can hear animals!”

Mama waved her hands as though that issue were a piece of meat attracting flies. “Don’t you get distracted, girl. You keeps that talking animals business hid under your headscarf, you hear me? Here’s the thing: why, by all that’s sacred, would this Kalcha set a magical python–and it must be magic, with them eyes–in a secret chamber to guard a bottle?”

“Yes!” cried Annakiya, leaping to her feet. In her excitement, she scattered scrolls left and right. “What’s in the bottle? It must be something important, right? I mean, you wouldn’t leave some strange bottle down there in the first place, would you? Maybe the baobab has ancient magic! Maybe the castle is cursed! Maybe… what do you think, Shioni?”

But Shioni had leaped to a different conclusion. “No, Mama,” she whispered, feeling quite sick at the thought. “Don’t make me!”

“I knows your heart, honey,” said Mama Nomuula. “I wouldn’t make you do nothing bad.”

“What–oh!” said Annakiya. “You want her to go get that bottle, don’t you?” She looked from Mama’s grimly-pursed lips to Shioni’s ashen colour. “Well, I’ve a thing or two to say to you, my friend!”

“What’s that?”

The Princess lifted her chin and scowled fiercely. “You’re not–absolutely not–doing anything on your own this time, is that clear?”

“Phew,” said Mama. “A royal command!”

Shioni had to laugh. “Yes, your Highness!”

Chapter 18: A Trunkful of Advice

THE CHIEF ELEPHANT EXAMINED Shioni from his great height and heaved exactly the kind of sigh Mama Nomuula reserved for the hijinks of errant children.

“Less haste and more understanding would improve your manners,” he said, finally, in a deep and very ponderous voice. Exactly the kind of voice Shioni would have imagined an elephant should have. “Fancy running up here like you’ve a swarm of bees buzzing around your head, and blurting out your questions without a word of greeting! Rude–”

“Chief, you promised.” The oldest of the females–Dusky–laid a motherly trunk on Shioni’s shoulder. “She is young, and the young are full of hasty airs and hastier words.”

Shioni resisted an urge to rub her eyes or exclaim in disbelief. She could understand elephant speech! She was standing in the sunshine in the middle of the elephant pen actually talking to the five elephants. Shioni looked about her quickly, but none of the handlers were paying her any attention–they were much more interested in catching a late afternoon snooze in the cheerful sunshine. Hiding her fingers beneath her crossed arms, she surreptitiously pinched the skin of her left side. Ouch! Definitely awake. As loony as a howling, moon-mad red wolf. As the elephants argued back and forth, she muttered, ‘I must act normal’. Several times.

And what exactly was normal? Especially when she was practically bursting with the need to try to steal that bottle from the python’s lair, and the Princess had decided instead to take several more days to investigate the scroll store. At least that would allow her shoulder time to heal.

“Calling my work ‘doing something’ is an insult to the considerable forethought and craft I invested in–”

“How you grumble!” Dusky and the Chief sounded exactly like a quarrelling old couple, Shioni thought, with their gentle, loving bickering back and forth. She added, “We had discussed the girl’s emoting like a volcano, spouting ash and pumice to the four winds, yes. But you snatched the opportunity in less time than it takes to sneeze. I didn’t know you still had it in you.”

“Ha! Ha!” The gusts of air from his trunk blew Shioni’s hair all over her face. “And who pulls the greatest loads amongst the great pachyderms, might I ask?”

“And his son will be bigger and stronger than him,” Beauty whispered in Shioni’s ear.

“And my son will be bigger and stronger than I!”

Shioni was giggling when she felt something pluck her tunic. She turned to Beauty and slapped her trunk, which had adeptly picked her pocket of a lump of rock salt. “Can’t you tell me what he did? Please? Anyone?”

“Salt!” cried Beauty, with a naughty chuckle.

The other elephants all crowded around. “Hand it over, girl!” “Have you been hiding salt?” “Yum, what a treat!” “Oldest first! I tell you, these youngsters learn their manners from monkeys!”

Shioni shoved her hands into her tunic pockets to keep the thieving trunks out. One trunk was trying to tickle her right armpit, another was tugging at her shoulder. “Not until you tell me what I want to know! Hey! Stop that!”

The Chief Elephant had snared her waist and whipped her up into the air, upside-down. He shook her about, making lumps of salt fly everywhere.

“Shioni!”

“Mama needs me. Put me down!”

“Put me down, please,” the Chief Elephant corrected her with a severe shake of his trunk. “Pleases and thank you’s are the very heart of good manners.”

“So is not intruding in peoples’ private thoughts!”

Dusky shoved the Chief Elephant with her shoulder–a shove which would have sent Shioni flying, but did not move him an inch. “The girl has a point.”

“Hmm.” The Chief Elephant drew Shioni closer to his eye, looking at her as though he could see right into her thoughts and feelings. Then he suddenly flipped her over again and set her on her feet with deft care. “Indeed she does. We must remember to thank you for having the handler treat Beauty’s foot. Now, a full explanation would be needlessly complicated…”

Beauty’s trunk tickled Shioni’s ear. “And very, very long-winded.”

“Shioni, you were shouting when you last visited us. Thoughts, words, feelings, all jumbled up and erupting out of you like a volcano. I merely unlocked what was already inside of you. The key in itself is nothing. An artifice, if you like.”

“What’s an artifice?”

“Shioni! Where is that dratted girl?”

“Don’t they teach these humans the rudiments of language?”

“An artifice is a trick,” said Beauty. “And you talk just fine. Thank you for informing our handler of my pregnancy. We already enjoy better feed as a result. Now, do run along before you get into trouble.”

Scrambling over the fence of the elephant enclosure, Shioni dashed around to the main entrance of the keep, which was not far. Mama Nomuula was waiting for her, hands on hips. “Where you been hiding, girl?”

“Sorry Mama, I was held up–by an elephant.”

Chapter 19: Snaky, Snaky on the Wall

CURTAINS OF CLOUD DRIFTED across the full moon. The night air smelled of wood smoke from the castle’s banked-up cooking fires, mixed with the savour of coffee trees and spices drying in the courtyard. There was no sign of a break in the warm weather. Shioni poked her head carefully out of the kitchen doorway and glanced up to the parapets. General Getu would not have let the warriors slip into the watchtower and play at dice, she thought. Or maybe they were sleeping?

So far, the scrolls had turned up nothing more of great interest. Shioni was sick of scrolls. Even Annakiya declared she was ‘wilting’ and if there was no news by the end of the third day’s searching that room, Shioni would get her wish–another chance to face the python. Cue yet another bout of night-time craziness…

Shioni turned to beckon Annakiya. Keeping close to the shadows, they slipped along the kitchen wall toward the well. In a moment, Shioni saw the rope lying ready. Someone had fixed it to a strong iron ring set in the wall, probably once used for tethering horses. Good, Mama’s plan had worked. She had bribed one of the messenger boys with a wad of honeycomb to ask the warriors to lay a rope for the stonemasons–only, the masons knew nothing of the matter!

Shioni quickly dragged the coiled rope over to the well and let it run quickly through her hands, length upon length, until there was none left. The warriors had even knotted it for easy climbing, and secured it to the ring. Heart thumping away, she peered over the edge of the well. It was blacker than night down there. A spider seemed to be dancing on the nape of her neck, only when she rubbed the spot, there was nothing there.

“Go on,” Annakiya breathed in her ear. “You scared?”

Shioni nodded. “A bit.”

That was a lie, and it didn’t convince either of them. Taking a deep breath, she gripped the rope and began the hand-over-hand descent into darkness, trying to ignore the growing pain in her lion-healed shoulder. When would it ever be better?

It took a few tries to find the doorway down in the well, but once inside Shioni tugged sharply on the rope, three times, to signal Annakiya. Soon she could hear a slight scraping and panting of breath as the Princess made her way down into the well. Good grief, she was heavy! Shioni found she had to wedge herself across the narrow tunnel, so that her friend would be guided right down into the tunnel’s mouth. She wound the rope several times about her body and pressed grimly with her shoulders and feet as her friend clambered down to join her.

“Where’s the light?” said Annakiya, scrambling in. “Oh, look at my poor chafed fingers! I should have brought gloves.”

“I was busy hauling you in, you little elephant.”

“Thanks.” Annakiya’s flint sparked. “Darn. Ok, here we go. Give me your lamp.”

Soon, the smoky light of two oil-lamps flickered inside the roughly-bricked tunnel. Annakiya’s eyes looked bright with excitement.

“Second thoughts?” asked Shioni.

“A few,” said Annakiya, a little breathlessly. “But I’ll have you know, I prefer my friends not to be eaten by lions or snakes! Not without the royal permission, anyhow. Keep your dagger handy, right? And I’ll get this sack ready.”

The sack was for throwing over the python’s head, should it appear. Shioni thought that plan was looking sillier and sillier. Holding her dagger at the ready didn’t help her feel any braver either. Imagine if she let the Princess of West Sheba get hurt… oh dear. In comparison, being bullied by the Captain would seem like a walk in a flowery meadow!

She had seen movement in that bottle, hadn’t she? But the rest was all a blur. If only Anbessa could have lent her some of his great strength. ‘I see much of a mouse in your spirit, Shioni,’ she muttered to herself.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Shioni. “Come on. And whatever you do, keep your eyes peeled for that python.”

Cat-footed, the girls crept up the tunnel. It seemed longer than Shioni remembered, full of thin roots that like spiteful fingers, wanted to tug and tangle her hair. Millipedes and beetles scuttled away at the approaching light, and finger-long cockroaches waved their feelers aggressively and made tiny clicking noises as their claws scraped the bricks.

Annakiya put her hand on Shioni’s shoulder, and when she turned, she saw that her friend was following with her eyes scrunched shut!

Shioni stopped at the entrance of the grotto. She held up her lamp, making the shadows leap backward. Annakiya peered around her, holding her lamp high as well. The pool of light they made seemed pitifully small. It didn’t reach the far wall of the chamber, and the great roots cast twisted shadows everywhere. Shioni realised that the python could be hiding anywhere. She motioned Annakiya to be silent, and then pointed to her eyes and ears.

Annakiya nodded. She was looking for the bottle, but her gaze kept jumping nervously to the roof. Her lamp-light was shaking.

‘There,’ Shioni mouthed, pointing. She led the way.

The girls stole forward, barefoot, making no sound apart from the soft rustling of their clothing. The darkness retreated before them and above them, but amongst the roots and hard-packed stones of the roof there was no sign of the python. Annakiya kept bumping into her from behind. Shioni had to resist a strong urge to scold her friend, trying to concentrate on the prize instead. No doubt Annakiya was as nervous as she was!

They saw the simple stone pedestal now, set on a circle of paving stones in the heart of the grotto. But this time, Shioni noticed that there were swirling patterns and geometric shapes chiselled into the pedestal, and into the stone floor all around it. She wondered if this place had once been used for magic. Maybe in the castle’s distant past, evil magicians had stood right here… the idea made her knees turn shuddery! A large, transparent bottle stood in the exact centre of the pedestal. It was made of a strange kind of crystal, which was reflecting and throwing the lamplight in all directions, in multiple rainbows and vivid swathes of colour.

Shioni narrowed her eyes. There was a little lump inside, no more. Her heart sank at once. Surely they weren’t risking their lives for that?

Acting on instinct, she stepped around to her right, changing their angle of approach. Her eyes probed the deep shadows between the huge, dangling roots. Here, at the centre of the grotto, the roof vaulted upwards almost as if to touch the very underside of the baobab. Perhaps it was hollow. Perhaps there was a way to climb down inside the huge trunk. Whatever the case, the lamplight did not reach high enough to reveal the chamber’s secrets.

Did she smell wood smoke from the kitchen fires? The bottle was almost close enough to reach out and touch. Did she dare?

The lump moved. Yes, it was definitely stirring, rising slightly, weakly… for all the world like an injured bird… Shioni strained her eyes. It was about the size of a sparrow, but neither feathered nor furred. What kind of creature was it? She had the strangest sense that it was somehow responding to their presence!

Then, a tiny wink of ruby-red light caught her eye. Shioni’s head snapped around. “Anni!” she shrieked, and shoved her friend away from her as hard as she could!

Annakiya tumbled backwards, so shocked she forgot even to scream. Her lamp went flying and smashed against the ground, spilling out its oil. Flames burst like red flowers from the point of impact.

The python had been dangling down a gnarled tree root, as still and quiet as death itself. Brown on brown, its disguise was almost perfect. Shioni’s shove pushed the Princess well clear. But that same force thrust her hard up against the python. She had a horrified second to realise this even as a thick coil tightened around her thighs, pinning her to the root.

Instinctively, she swung the dagger, but the writhing snake knocked her elbow and the blow went awry. Fury and hatred scorched her. Shioni yelled in frustration as her wrist twisted sharply and the blade dropped to the ground. She struggled with all her strength, trying to slip her legs out of the coil, using both hands to try to lever it loose. But the python was one great, rippling length of muscle. That coil tightened on her legs like a monstrous cord; supple, powerful, and inescapable. She might as well have tried to push an elephant aside for all the good she was doing.

Annakiya started forward as though poked by a stick. She held the sack in her hands. “Hurry!” cried Shioni.

But the python lunged at her, fangs agape. Annakiya batted it aside with the sack. Shioni was fighting her own battle against a second coil which was threatening to encircle her. It bumped the lamp, which was still in her hand, spilling oil down her arm. The python’s grip shifted, strengthening again.

“The eyes!” Shioni remembered what Anbessa had said. “Go for the eyes!”

Annakiya lunged for the dagger, but the python’s lashing coils knocked her back. She fell dangerously close to the patch of burning oil. But the Princess bravely found her feet and lifted the sack again. “You are not eating my friend!” she shouted.

The python’s tail had curled somewhere behind the root. That second loop drew tight, despite Shioni fighting it tooth and claw, and began to constrict her waist. The reptilian skin was surprisingly cool and dry, but beneath it the bands of elastic muscle worked powerfully and efficiently. The most frightening thing to Shioni was how the pressure never let up, not even for a heartbeat. Her diaphragm and ribs were being crushed to a pulp and there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

Shioni could see Annakiya trying to manoeuvre the sack into position. She wanted to scream at her to hurry, but there was too little air left in her lungs. The pressure was so intense, her eyes were bulging out of their sockets. Her vision began to draw in at the edges, as though she were being pulled backward into a tunnel.

The Princess pounced! She flipped the sack over the python’s head, snuffing out the baleful red eyes. The whole length of the python convulsed madly! It thrashed like a river-trout speared by a heron’s beak, and Annakiya, who was hanging on grimly with both her arms and legs, was taken for a bruising ride.

As the coils slackened a touch, Shioni found she could wriggle free. She took a huge, sweet breath of fresh air. Saved! Well, not if they didn’t make a fast exit…

The python was enraged. It was hissing and spitting, lunging this way and that, trying to throw off its attacker. Annakiya was flung clear. But the huge snake continued to thrash its way around the grotto in a terrible frenzy.

“Quick, the bottle!” called Annakiya, as Shioni hesitated.

She snatched up the bottle. Where was that dagger? Was the Princess doing a little victory dance over there? She couldn’t believe her eyes!

“Did you see what I did?”

Shioni ducked into the tunnel. “I was a bit busy, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

She slipped the bottle under her tunic and tucked the fabric into the cord belt of her leggings. There–both hands free for climbing. Her stomach was still rearranging itself back to normal. What damage had been done? At least she could breathe, now. And the python’s terrible hatred seemed to fade with every step they took down the tunnel.

The snake was still scraping and hissing, and crashing into things so hard that dust puffed out of the tunnel’s ceiling at each impact. It wouldn’t follow them, surely? It would no doubt escape the sack soon. And then she would not want to be waiting around to find out just how much they had maddened it!

Annakiya was trying to skip, which wasn’t very wise considering how low and tight the tunnel was. She kept whispering, “I bagged that python!” and “Saved you, didn’t I?” and “Did you see me ride on its back, Shioni, did you?” until Shioni said crossly:

“Be quiet, will you, or the warriors will hear us!”

But the renewed hissing of the python in the tunnel behind them convinced both girls to hurry!

Up the knotted rope it was, “Aren’t you glad you took me, Shioni?” and “What are friends for, I ask you?” But by the time they reached the Princess’ chamber, shut the door behind them, and looked at each other in the low lamplight, the shakes had set in and Annakiya had to sit down.

“My knees aren’t working,” she said in surprise.

“Here,” said Shioni, kindly, “have some bread and honey, Anni. You’re in shock.”

A tear tracked down her cheek. Annakiya smeared it absently with the back of her hand. “How do you do it, Shioni? I like it when you call me ‘Anni’.” She bit into the bread. “Just look at my hands! That awful snake was right next to your shoulder and we didn’t even see it. Was I brave enough?”

“Not bad for a scroll-worm.”

“Not bad for a scroll-worm?” A slow smile spread over the Princess’s face.

“Magnificent!” said Shioni, feelingly.

“You were turning blue, Shioni. I had to do something! God!” She shuddered as though she had a malarial fever. “I never want to do anything like that ever again. Hurry up with that bottle.”

Both girls leaned closer as Shioni held the bottle up to the light. It was remarkably heavy. The wide neck was stoppered with a foul-looking gob of wax, pierced by two reed straws, perhaps for letting air in. It looked very much the kind of bottle one might find on a witch’s shelf, Shioni imagined. But its contents were the most remarkable thing of all.

Annakiya was the first to find her voice. “Why, I do believe it’s a little person in there! Get it out, Shioni–but be careful!”

Shioni tipped the bottle up and give it a tiny shake. Now they could see more clearly inside, and they gasped in unison. “Wings!” said Shioni. “What is it… what kind of creature…?”

“Here, give me that writing stylus. I’ll get it out.”

It took but a moment to gouge out the wax. Shioni wrinkled her nose as a puff of air from the bottle hit her nostrils. It smelled stale, yet still hinted at the scents of wild meadow flowers and sweet nectar. Very gingerly, she tilted the bottle until the creature slid out and flopped flaccidly onto her palm.

“Mind your clumsy fingers,” said Annakiya.

“I am being careful!”

But the friends were much more interested in their find than in having a row.

At first Shioni thought she was seeing a miniature person, curled up in her hand, with a shock of grass-green hair and slender dark limbs, perfect in every detail right down to miniscule eyelashes curling over slumbering eyes. The creature’s breathing seemed irregular, as though it might stop without warning. But then other details began to intrude. Her gaze took in the crumpled gossamer wings; the unhealthy, greyish pallor underlying a skin which was covered in intricate whorls and spiralling patterns of green-and-gold; the over-large size of the eyes compared to the tiny, angular face; a tightly coiled purple tongue protruding slightly out of her mouth; and… stars in heaven, were those antennae sprouting out of the forehead?

She tried to ask, “Is i-it an a-asmati?”

Shioni, brimming over with emotion after their confrontation with the snake, was mortified at how her voice wobbled and nearly cracked over the question. She felt as wrung out as an old washrag. She resisted an urge to fling the creature aside as her skin crawled unpleasantly from the palm of her hand up to her neck and back again.

“She–not it–needs help,” Annakiya said, adding in tones of rising excitement, “Keep her warm, Shioni. Here, a handkerchief should work. Try some honey. I’ll go find Mama Nomuula.”

“I… what?”

Annakiya whirled in the doorway, waving her hands. “She’s not an asmati, you silly duck! Nothing evil at all!”

“Anni! Don’t leave me with this… thing!”

Her dark eyes flashing across the room, the Princess hissed, “I can’t believe you, of all people, are ignorant of what an incredibly rare and magical creature you happen to be holding in your hand!”

Heat burst into her cheeks. Not everyone had the privilege of a Princess’ education! In her most sarcastic tones, Shioni started, “And it is called–”

“A Fiuri,” interrupted her friend. “One of the butterfly-people. Need I say more?”

And, leaving Shioni gaping at the empty doorway, the Princess dashed off in search of Mama Nomuula.

A Fiuri? Shioni let out a breath she had barely realised she was holding. But they were just stories, creatures from the stories that Mama Nomuula so loved to tell. “You’re holding one, you daft donkey! Anything not real about this?” So why could she not stop shivering?

She poked the Fiuri gently with a fingertip touch, making her stir once more, but only slightly. Then she felt a stab of guilt. Imagine being poked by a creature big enough to hold you in the palm of its hand? She didn’t want to put the Fiuri down. Wouldn’t she hurt it by accident? Such delicate wings, such neatly curling antennae! Such a tiny chest rising and falling with her breathing.

Poor Fiuri. What had she been doing down there in the grotto? How long had she been there? And why would Kalcha set a monster python to guard a mite like this–unless she was a great deal more powerful than they imagined?

“Wake up,” she whispered. “I want to see your eyes.”

Chapter 20: Disobeying The King

PRINCESS ANNAKIYA REGARDED HER slave-girl with a gaze so soulful that Shioni thought she was about to cry. “You know I probably won’t be able to defend you, my friend? We would be disobeying the King’s orders–and he’s away in Takazze for meetings with the delegation from Kush.”

“I am doing this on my own. Otherwise, you’ll get into trouble.”

“Shioni, honestly. As if you need trouble any more than I! Captain Dabir is in charge while Father is away. And you know the General will stick strictly to the King’s word.”

Shioni watched a heron dabbing its beak down to peck a tilapia fish out of the river. She and Annakiya were sitting side-by-side on the bank of the river, just out of earshot of a warrior watching over them–Tewodros, who she liked and Mama trusted.

“Anni, we’ve been over this a hundred times. Look at me. It’s been four days and Mama’s no closer to healing the Fiuri. She must have been in that bottle for months, maybe even years. Mama’s a legend in medicine-lore and can heal a leopard of its spots, but if the witch Kalcha really has stolen the Fiuri’s powers, as Mama thinks…”

And such powers! From the stories Shioni had heard over the years, the Fiuri should have been able to paint the moon blue, make it rain diamonds every day for a year, and bring any imaginable kind of good luck to pass with a trifling flick of her tiny fingers. But old wives’ tales were a far cry from the reality lying comatose in a small, padded box on the Princess’ desk.

The sun was setting behind the mountains, highlighting the jag-toothed peaks of the wilderness stretching out west of Castle Asmat. Somewhere out there lay the answer. Maybe.

“You said the Fiuri whispered something about a disa flower–”

“That’s what Mama thinks she heard,” said the Princess. “Red disa nectar.”

“And if Sheba’s fate depends on breaking this curse–”

“Then you’re the one who’s about to toss herself off a cliff for the sake of West Sheba.”

Shioni chuckled, but she said firmly, “Now you’re just being dramatic. I am not changing my mind, Anni; nor do I intend to jump off anything larger than a tuft of grass. I will ride into the mountains, find a waterfall as Mama said, and find this flower. You will not lie for my sake. You gave me no orders. Whatever happens, happens.”

“You are as stubborn as an old she-goat! And how will you leave the valley? Tewodros says the patrols up there are as thick as fleas on a stray dog.”

“Already planned,” said Shioni, resisting an urge to smirk. “I’ll ride east past Ginab and then swing north. Kifle says there’s several more valleys like this one that lead into the mountains above Ras Dejen, the great peak. He says there’s bound to be a few waterfalls up there somewhere. All you need to do is send Tewodros with Star later.” She patted Annakiya’s knee. “And you need to stop worrying so much. I’ll be fine. I’ll be back to irritate you before you know it.”

“Grr.”

“That’s quite un-royal of you, Princess.”

Annakiya’s answering hug was so tight Shioni gave a grunt of pain. “I will pray for you every moment. Now, go hide before I start crying.”

“Now there’s an order I can obey.”

She burrowed into a patch of reeds. Annakiya was right, of course. Riding into the mountains would mean breaking the King’s command. Her friends would be unable to conceal her absence for long. Shioni shook her head glumly. Annakiya’s word wouldn’t be worth a dry fig when she returned to the castle.

Especially as they were dealing with magic. The King of Sheba hated even the mention of the word. If only the Fiuri could have revived. She was the key–hopefully. What was certain was that Kalcha was up to no good with that red-eyed python of hers. If she had cursed the castle as Anbessa claimed, then the forces of West Sheba were in dire danger. Mama, Annakiya, Kifle, Tewodros–all the people she cared for and who cared for her. Shioni had not said as much to her friend, but she would rather it were her life on the line than any of theirs.

Did she dare trust the word of a lion who had clawed her shoulder open to the bone? And why did she feel such a sense of loyalty to her owners?

These thoughts preoccupied her as darkness drew in.

At some level, it always surprised Shioni how quickly the daylight surrendered after sunset. ‘Night fell–clunk,’ she muttered, mostly to cheer herself up with an admittedly silly joke.

But even as she tilted back her head to admire the stars, a soft tapping of hooves came to her hearing. Tewodros? If so, he was early. She kept very still among the rushes. Yes, that was definitely Star. Tewodros gave the agreed signal, two yips like a hyena followed by the hoot of an Abyssinian long-eared owl.

Shioni scrambled out from her hiding place.

“Secret journey, eh?” said Tewodros, grinning down at her. “Mama promised me five honey cakes in return for this little job. A bargain, if you ask me. One for each of my children. Right, there’s bread in the bag, some kolo for snacking on, a gourd of water, and here’s your bow.”

“Thanks, Tewodros.” The kolo–dried grain with a hint of spice–was a surprise. Mama’s work, no doubt.

“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t know where you’re going and I didn’t even see you. Stay safe, alright?”

Shioni slipped the strap of the quiver over her back and settled her recurve bow in place. “Tewodros, do you know these mountains?”

“About as well as I know the High Priest,” the warrior said. “I’m a plains man and always will be. You should have asked Tariku. He’s mountains-born.”

A little late for that, she thought.

After waving briefly to Tewodros, Shioni mounted up. “Nice to have you along, Star.” Star evidently felt the same way. “Right. Down to Ginab–for the third time. I guess you know the way by now.”

Star trotted steadily along the watercourse for several hours and then through the woods. The castle carpenters had been busy here; the marks of tree-felling were evident even in the starry darkness. Before Ginab Village the trail would split–she must look out for the northern branch and not ride on past her mark like last time…

Several hours after midnight, having found the right trail, Shioni walked Star around the back of a thicket and found herself a place to nap until dawn. But she was too excited to sleep properly.

‘Oh, and don’t forget scared,’ she told herself, chewing on a hunk of bread. ‘Excited, and scared.’

Shioni was on the trail before dawn. She rode north along the rolling foothills of the Simien Mountains almost until noon before she spotted a likely-looking trail leading back to the north-west, and decided to take it. The climb was long and tiring. Star, neither the youngest pony nor as sprightly as she had been when Shioni first started riding her years before, was quite puffed by the time they reached the top. Shioni let her rest before continuing.

Here she came upon a small village. Just a clutch of huts with round, mud-and-stick walls and a conical rush roof, like any of the thousands in the mountains. She found a group of women sitting in the shade of one hut preparing a simple meal of grains. Shioni paused to ask about a waterfall, but they were clearly suspicious of her and would not utter a word, but merely pointed up to the high peaks with their chins. As she departed she heard one mutter, ‘Don’t the spirits even stay in the mountains any more, that they must come bother us poor villagers?’

All that afternoon Shioni pressed on beneath a sun that seemed to bake her from both above and below. The ground was dry and waterless, and seemed to reflect back the sun’s heat until she felt she was riding along in an oven. What grass there was eked out a pitiful living amongst the rocks. She wondered how even the goats survived on this tough brown stubble. Heat shimmered off the rising ground ahead of her. It struck her that she must be the only living thing on that long, barren slope, and that she was crawling uphill like an insect climbing a boulder.

When she dismounted to give Star a break, she could feel the change in altitude burning deep in her lungs. Even deep breaths did not help. The air felt thin; her throat was as parched as the terrain.

But she was steadily drawing closer to those towering battlements. To her left hand a cluster of peaks must contain Ras Dejen, said to be the highest mountain in Abyssinia, but she did not know which one it was. She was skirting their vast northern flank, trying to keep on a heading similar to what the villagers had indicated. And up ahead, if she was not mistaken, the terrain changed. Radically.

As evening drew in, Shioni crested yet another rise and halted Star with an exclamation: “Awesome.” It seemed the only word which came close to describing her reaction.

Two steps forward, and the ground sheared away without warning into a huge gorge. Other crevasses and gorges, as abrupt and unapologetic as the first, joined it at odd angles, creating the impression that the flesh of the mountain had been eaten away by animals, leaving the naked ribs and spine to be slowly weathered away over the centuries. The low angle of the sun accentuated this impression, picking out the ridges and outcroppings with golden splendour, while turning the depths into mysterious, bottomless pits of shadow.

Beyond the gorge lay a fractured, jumbled wilderness of volcanic peaks–the secretive heart of the Simiens. Never mind hiding Kalcha and her band of Wasabi, Shioni thought. A hundred warrior tribes could be hiding in that maze and the warriors of West Sheba would never find them.

And why did her heart soar within her when she looked over this landscape? She should have been cowed. A slave-girl on her own? Up here? Whatever was she thinking?

Yet the mountains sang to her soul with the thrilling sound of horns, like hunting horns sounded in the heat of the chase; with impassable cliffs and unknown treasures, and a stark, untamed majesty.

That she could have been an eagle flying above it all!

Shioni turned solemnly to her pony. “Do you wonder, Star, if I might have come from such a place as this?”

Star flicked her ears and bent her head to nibble at a clump of grass.

“I suppose not.”

Chapter 21: Finding the Wasabi

FOR TWO FURTHER DAYS Shioni roamed the mountains like the proverbial lost sheep, doing much seeking and considerably less finding.

Her thoughts floated on the wind as Star trotted wearily away from the village she had just visited. She had spent three days and nights high in the mountains so far, but the rare, water-loving red disa flower the Fiuri needed was no closer to being found. She’d lost count of the number of villages she had stopped in to enquire.

She stretched her aching legs. She could gladly have peeled off her ferengi skin. Yesterday, some villagers had driven her away by pelting her with stones. Some villagers seemed to fear she was one of the Wasabi; others shouted about a giant asmati. When she tried to explain that she was from West Sheba, from the river-people, a bold child had enquired if the river had washed all the brown out of her skin! She felt too worn out and dejected to find this funny.

Why a disa flower? Why not desert rose, euphorbia, or even a fireball lily? She’d passed these in bucket-loads, in cart-loads even! Although the desert rose was a deadly poison, often used on arrows. That might not work. As she wound along the stream higher and higher amidst the peaks, the still pools were often thick with fiery orange and crimson water-lilies. Surely one of the butterfly-people wouldn’t mind a few of these? They were beautiful enough!

At least this side of the mountain seemed to be wetter. She was sure to find a red disa soon. Shioni tried not to think too hard about the Fiuri dying before she returned.

It was late afternoon, and the sun’s rays still pressed down intently, as though intent on smothering anything that moved and breathed in a blanket of heat. Shioni wished she had brought a hat or a headscarf. But then she didn’t own any, did she? Her skin would fry like Mama’s crispy beef. And her stomach had a hole in it! A growling, growing hole. Next time she should remember to bring a reasonable amount of food to eat. Silly! She had only been able to scavenge berries and grass seeds so far. Selam or Tariku would probably have known many edible plants, having grown up in the mountains.

Here the stream she was following ended in a pretty dell, surrounded by spikey lobelia trees and tufty mountain grasses, where a spring bubbled up from beneath a large boulder. At least the last set of villagers hadn’t been lying about this part! The blind leader of the village–the shemagele or male elder–had been kind to her and helped with directions. Shioni dismounted. But he had been curiously vague about the trail beyond the spring. Hesitant, as if he knew something he was not telling her.

She let the pony drink, rubbing her stomach absently. This niggling in her gut wasn’t just hunger… she should keep a falcon’s watch on her surroundings. Would the Sheban scouts have come this deep into the mountains? Where was the sun? Having set out north from the castle, the trail had slowly curved around to the west and even directly southward now, so that she was not that far from the castle, perhaps only a day and a half’s hard riding at her best guess–if she did not have to detour for another impassable cliff or cleft.

Shioni turned on her heel. A few berries, a drink and a rest were needed to refresh her.

Toward sundown she set off on foot, up the steep, rocky slope beyond the spring toward the top of the ridge she had been aiming for all day. Somewhere up here she should find a waterfall called the ‘little Jinbar’ by the villagers.

As she approached the crest of the ridge, Shioni began to feel a low rumbling beneath her feet and hear a powerful rushing of water. To her left hand the peaks and high meadows of emerald-green moss, dotted with small rocks, rose still higher, but ahead of her a wonderful vista opened up. The ridge cut away in a dizzying drop to an avocado-green valley ridged like a crumpled tablecloth, and beyond it, ridges and peaks scored with the tracks of ancient rivers marched off to the horizon. Mist rose from a plume of water jetting into the depths, so far down that she couldn’t see the bottom.

Shioni wobbled slightly and squatted on her heels so as to feel closer to solid ground. “And this is the little Jinbar?” she said. “Amazing! Where’s its big brother?”

It seemed the most likely place to find the elusive disa flower so far.

Just then, she saw something that made her duck behind the nearest boulder. She peered out warily.

Spear tips… a group of unfamiliar warriors had appeared suddenly from a hidden fold in the ground! Shioni blinked, searching more intently now. That rising meadow above the waterfall must be tricking her eyes. There had to be something concealed… there! Now, with the sun’s help, she could see smoke rising into the reddening sky. The warriors were coming her way. She quickly wormed her way as far beneath the boulder as she could.

“Kalcha needs more goats!” she heard.

“We’ve already taken everything from the villages. They’ve got nothing left.”

Shioni pressed herself against the ground and tried to hold her breath. The faces approaching her hiding place were those of fierce, warlike men, their cheeks and foreheads scarred with tribal markings and painted to resemble hyenas.

“Last night was something, eh?”

“Torture! Ah, those Shebans bleated like pitiful little lambs. Call them warriors?”

Footsteps thudded around the boulder. Be small, be silent, and don’t see me, Shioni prayed. One of the Wasabi gave an evil laugh:

“Threw them over the waterfall, after. Ha ha!”

“Four days till full moon, boys. Then we crush those weaklings!”

Chapter 22: Kalcha Reveals Her Plans

AS THEIR VOICES FADED, Shioni lay in the lee of the boulder and tried not to be sick. Those poor captured warriors! She could hardly imagine what they must have suffered. Finally, weakly, she wriggled out and considered her options. A horrible fate awaited her if she was discovered. But if she could take a look at the Wasabi camp and give General Getu some good information, her punishment might be lightened. She might also find a disa near the waterfall. But both tasks were best accomplished while there was still some light in the sky.

Finally, she chose the Fiuri. She was dying, whereas the warriors in the castle still had a good chance if she could warn them in time.

Dropping into a crouching run, Shioni darted from boulder to boulder, as far down the slope towards the cliff edge as she dared so as not to be easily seen. Here she found the thread of an animal trail. But as she neared the waterfall, following the trail, the rocks grew slick with wet mosses, and the thick, overhanging ferns and long sharp grasses had to be pushed aside. She picked her way uneasily now, placing each step with care. The tree branches were blotched with lichens and draped with soggy, hanging old-man’s-beard moss. She surprised a young wild goat grazing on the lichens. It bounded away down the sheer cliff face with astonishing agility.

Her clothes were sticking to her skin. Here, right next to the rushing water, the thunder was deafening and the spray constant. Where were those… oh! There, peeking out from beneath an overhang, in a splash of the most vivid red–just as Mama had described, with three distinctive blade-shaped petals–was a small disa. She smiled happily. Now that she had spotted one, she saw several others lower down, but those would be impossible to reach without the wings of an eagle.

So near…! The pretty flower was just out of her reach, and to secure it Shioni realised she would have to brave the waterfall itself. She could almost see Mama Nomuula and Annakiya wagging their fingers sternly. ‘Don’t put yourself in danger, Shioni!’ ‘No risks please!’

Well, it was worth it, right?

She always said something like that when she was about to do something foolish. Shioni untied the rough cord belt of her leggings, feeling both annoyed and comforted by her friends’ mothering. She looped one end of the cord around the base of a spindly tree and tied it fast. Then she tied the free end around her wrist.

“Oh!” she gasped. The water was freezing! Shioni leaned out, trying to plunge her hand through the torrent, but the rushing water kept batting her about like a toy. She tried to squeeze herself like another layer of moss along the rocks, but that meant putting her head into the flow. It was so cold it hurt to think.

But finally, her determination won out. Shioni’s exploring fingers won a grip near the flower. “Come on. Gently…”

The root-clump came loose in her numbed fingers. Gingerly, she drew back, praying all the while the plant wouldn’t be swept away. Every muscle in her back bore the weight of water crashing down over her body. She almost bit a hole in her tongue as her wounded shoulder twinged severely. With a small scream, she broke free!

Mama Nomuula had given her a small bag she used for collecting herbs. With trembling fingers, Shioni worked the buckle open and drew out a clay pot. First, she scooped up a handful of wet moss and tamped it into the bottom and sides. Next she inserted the root clump, and then with great care, bent the stem to persuade the precious flower inside the lid. She tied it shut.

Now… back to her mount to fetch her blanket? The sun was already dipping behind those far mountains. The sunset had a gorgeous, luminous quality–but that would quickly disappear into the gathering evening.

Sodden and shivering to her very core, Shioni scrambled back up the trail, her precious bundle tapping against her back at every step. The temperature was dropping alarmingly. She was far higher even than at Castle Asmat. Yes, and she should bring more clothing next time, even if she had to steal it! And try not to jump through waterfalls in the cool of the evening...

It was all open, flower-sprinkled meadow up to where the warriors had appeared, dotted here and there with giant lobelia trees and waist-high boulders. Shioni drew a deep breath and gathered her courage. Time to spy on the Wasabi.

Hopefully her chattering teeth would not give her away.

The Wasabi warriors had come along a narrow gully, she found, which climbed sharply up to the meadow. That was why they had appeared so unexpectedly. But rather than follow their route, she chose to climb higher still, up to a rocky clump of boulders on the lip of a huge overhang. Here the meadow had been gouged away, perhaps by a flood, leaving a vertical cliff of blood-red soil and dark embedded rocks some five or six warriors tall.

Shioni looked around. No sentries? But plenty of warriors down below! None that she could see on the edge of the cliff… no–there was one man, far off and looking in a different direction. She dropped onto her belly and crawled to the edge.

Below, she saw that a sandy expanse beside the Jinbar River had been completely taken over by the Wasabi camp. There must have been over two hundred smaller tents, about as many fires, and in the distance, she saw several towering catapults and a thorn bush corral that held too many mountain ponies to count. The nearest and largest pavilion tent was pitched so close to the cliff, she could have taken a running leap and landed right on top of it.

But it was the great black pavilion that arrested her attention. Eight of the largest hyenas she had ever seen, great brutes the size of a small pony, were chained alongside it. Poor Anbessa! But her jaw hadn’t even begun to drop open before a tall woman in black robes came sweeping out of the tent, shouting:

“Where is my chariot? Bring me my chariot, you idiots! I must make sacrifices to the spirits before moonrise!” She kicked out at a scuttling servant. “Or it’ll be your head rolling tonight, I promise!”

Kalcha! Shioni had no doubt whatsoever that she was lying a stone’s throw from the witch-leader of the Wasabi. If they discovered her she would be tossed over the waterfall like the Sheban warriors the night before.

Kalcha clapped her hands. At once all the hyenas’ chains unwound themselves from their posts, and writhed like tinkling metal snakes across the ground, before leaping into her outstretched hand! The hyenas followed, crawling on their bellies before her like young wolves abasing themselves before their pack leader.

“Ah, my lovelies!” she said, with a ghastly smile. “Soon we will feast on the blood and bones of these soft river people. We will descend like locusts upon a succulent harvest and gorge ourselves until our bellies are sore. Such a delicious feast I have prepared for you!”

“Mistress!” yipped the beasts. “Command us, great mistress!”

“Four days!” Kalcha drew three or four of their revoltingly ugly heads into her embrace. “Four days and my power shall rise even as the full moon waxes above the mountains, and my curse fall like fire upon their heads! Then will I hold in my hands the power to change you all, to make you men, men such as this world has never seen! We will build our kingdom of death and destruction, and you will become kings and enslave all mankind!”

Such a wild, bawling, bloodthirsty chorus rose from the hyenas that every hair on the back of Shioni’s neck stood on end. She recoiled, turned, and found herself gazing down the meadow at a young Wasabi warrior leading Star along by a rope! He stared at her in shock. Had he stopped because of the fearful howling?

Shioni responded instinctively. Slowly, as if dreaming, she lifted her arms and started down the hill toward the warrior, chanting, “I am the spirit of your father… the ghost of those long gone…”

The poor young man startled as though he had seen a ghost. First he threw up his arms, as if to ward her off, and then his face drained of colour and, dropping the pony’s rope halter, he pelted away screeching and hollering that he was about to die!

Shioni quickly caught Star and swung onto her back. Already, there were shouts coming from the hill as warriors responded to the commotion. An arrow pinged off a nearby boulder. Two long-legged Wasabi warriors came hurtling down the meadow toward her, brandishing their spears, hurdling the boulders and pounding over the grassy tussocks like crazed goats in an attempt to cut off her escape. “Come on, girl!” Shioni urged Star. “The hyenas will eat you if you don’t!”

Scaring her mount half to death was hardly a kindness!

But the tired old pony found such wind as would have made the finest of Arabian horses proud. She took off like a peregrine falcon at the apex of its dive, so fast that the wind beat like wings in Shioni’s ears, and she had to clutch Star’s neck to keep from being thrown off. In moments they outran a brief flurry of spears and arrows.

Shioni clucked gently. “Easy now Star, old girl. You did well!”

Star was not too tired to send her a boasting picture of a pony with wings swooping over the peaks and valleys.

She glanced back. The Wasabi hyena-warriors would be hot on her trail soon. God help her if the witch caught up! She had to think quickly now–yes, down to the river she had come along, throw a false trail, and then bag the pony’s feet with cuts of her blanket. It was an old trick she had overheard two of the warriors talking about one night at the castle. She only hoped it worked, or she would be strung up a Wasabi tree faster than she could scare a turtledove out of its nest! After that she would cut eastward over the high passes, if she could, to Castle Asmat.

She prodded Star with her knees. She should make haste, but not panic. Even if returning to the castle meant leaping out of the frying pan into a nice hot fire. What a cheerful thought!

Chapter 23: Trouble on the Horizon

THE WARRIORS SURROUNDED HER at spear-point before Shioni fully woke up. Her heart lurched. She had been dozing on Star’s back, exhausted after spending a second whole night in the saddle without rest, while the pony plodded steadily up the high pass south of Ras Dejen and onward, she hoped, to the same valley that housed Castle Asmat.

Sheban Elites, dark shadows all around her in the faint light of false dawn… she swallowed as relief washed through her, closely followed by trepidation.

“What in God’s name are you doing out here, girl?”

The warrior who had spoken was one of the sub-Captains, a leader of twenty warriors. Shioni knew that Tariku–whose name meant ‘the story’–was very popular and his name was always mentioned with respect.

“Where did you come from?” Tariku growled. “How’d you get past the patrols?”

“I didn’t see any patrols, sir.”

“Huh! I’ll have their hides to decorate my shield. Fancy missing a Sheban slave-girl; next, we’ll have the Wasabi strolling unasked into the King’s bedchamber!”

“That’s what I meant to tell you,” said Shioni. She had meant to sound brave, but her voice wobbled traitorously. “The Wasabi are planning an attack.”

“What?” chorused the warriors.

“How’d you know that?” asked Tariku.

“I found their camp in the mountains,” said Shioni, wishing they would lower their spears. “The Wasabi were talking near where I hid, sir. They said they had captured some of our warriors and thrown them off a waterfall. And they said Kalcha was going to attack in four days, with the full moon.”

Tariku snapped his fingers. “The missing patrol! Dear Mother Mary–you’re sure about this, girl?”

She nodded.

“Describe the Wasabi camp. Did you see Kalcha?”

As Shioni began to describe the Wasabi camp and their forces as best she could remember, the disbelief faded off Tariku’s face, to be replaced by equal parts of astonishment and rock-hard determination. He must believe her, she thought. She could easily have been branded a liar. He asked several further details, and then suddenly stopped her in her tracks.

“We must take your report to the General. When was this, exactly?”

“Yesterday–sorry, two evenings ago, sir.” Had it been that long? No wonder she was dreaming that even rocks would make wonderfully soft pillows…

“Why were you in the mountains?”

Shioni took a deep breath. “I was running away, sir. But I changed my mind.”

His jaw dropped. “Into the mountains?” Tariku scratched his head, clearly trying to make sense of her lie. “That has to be the stupidest, the most–”

“Tariku, sir,” one of the men put in. “With the King away in Takazze we’ve only a skeleton force left at the Castle. If the Wasabi number half of what the slave-girl described… sir.”

“Where’s Kifle?”

“Gate guard at the castle, sir.”

Tariku’s eyes narrowed. “He’s the only one who could get to Takazze in time. That boy can outrun the wind. Mount up! Let’s move out! Shioni, you will ride with me. That pony of yours looks ready to drop.” He shook his head slowly. “What in the name of God got into your head, girl, running away? I wouldn’t want to be you when Captain Dabir hears about this.”

Shioni raised her chin. “I’ll take full responsibility for what I’ve done, sir.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re whipped at the post.”

She winced as she accepted Tariku’s boost into the saddle of his horse. She was a little surprised that his patrol was all mounted. Usually the warriors were on foot. Her mind helpfully supplied an image of a whipping she had once glimpsed at a barracks in Takazze–before Annakiya pulled her away. Touching Mama’s pouch which was tied to her belt, Shioni wondered if it would be worth the punishment. Dabir was going to think heaven itself had opened to smile upon him.

Her dread did not abate as the patrol rode rapidly on through the morning, soon cresting the high pass and clattering down the far side. Had the day been clear, she might have been able to see all the way to Takazze from the top. The terrain up here was strange; giant spiky lobelia plants dotted the high meadows, while other places were overrun with thick stands of St John’s wort and giant heather that stood several times the height of a man. The heather was fuzzy with moss, which swayed gently in the hot breeze.

The Sheban warriors, however, spared neither man nor mount in their descent. A warrior whose horse threw a shoe was left behind with another for company to suffer the indignity of walking back to Castle Asmat. Around midday they paused at a spring hidden amongst a clutch of boulders to let the horses drink and graze briefly. The men snacked on kolo and looked on as Shioni sketched a map of her journey in the dust for Tariku, trying to describe the approximate location of the Wasabi camp. As she suspected, the area had not been scouted before.

Thereafter there was a narrow, scrambling descent into a pungent juniper forest. The warriors, having led their horses down this loose scree, now mounted up again and picked up the pace.

“This is our valley,” Tariku told her. “The river which flows past our castle issues from a cave back there in the forest. And I do hope you have a sincere apology prepared for the Princess.”

Shioni rather hoped her friend would act her part–and hopefully head Captain Dabir off from ordering a whipping.

But it was General Getu she was most worried about. Would he believe her story?

Chapter 24: Punishment

TWO DAYS LATER, SHIONI was hard at work on the castle walls in the late afternoon heat, hauling stones for the masons. The heavy manacles adorning her hands and feet forced her to shuffle along like an arthritic old woman–which was part of the punishment, she accepted. But her fate depended now on two things: the King’s imminent arrival, and the imminent Wasabi attack. Then the King would decide what became of his daughter’s slave-girl. She might be whipped, reassigned, or sold. She might never see Annakiya or Mama Nomuula again.

The manacles and the back-breaking work were hardly the most hurtful aspect of her situation, Shioni thought, flexing her aching shoulder. It was definitely improving. Nor were the rough jibes and goading that her abrupt fall from grace had initiated. She had always been a target; now it had become a nastier game than before. Nor indeed was the vicious, visible pleasure Captain Dabir had taken in accusing her of breaking the King’s law, of stealing a pony, and of bringing the Wasabi scourge down upon them. How his eyes had glittered as he locked the manacles in place!

No, most hurtful of all was General Getu’s response. His bitter, cold fury was etched in her memory like acid-drawings on metal.

In close second, she reflected sadly, came the fact that the disa’s sweet nectar had not helped the magical creature recover. ‘Yet!’ Mama Nomuula insisted. But Shioni was forced to consider that her trip, and all that followed, had been a complete waste at great risk.

All this for an overgrown insect? But the moment this thought popped up, she banished it, ashamed of herself. Should she not value another life as her own? Even the life of some non-human magical creature straight out of a storyteller’s story-chest? Shioni shook her head. Who was she to judge? Even so.

‘What is in my power, what is given me, I’ll do,’ she muttered quietly, feeling disturbed at the path her thoughts were taking.

It was as simple as some of the number work Hakim Isoke had been teaching Princess Annakiya. Add together the bottle, the hidden location beneath the baobab tree, the arcane symbols etched on the chamber’s floor, and Kalcha’s snake to guard it all, and what could they conclude? The butterfly-person must be important in some way they could not imagine. Valuable. Possibly, extremely powerful. Would she make an ally, or had they unearthed another enemy?

A trumpet fanfare lifted her mood. The King had arrived! At last, not a day too soon. After her report, delivered to a hostile audience, Kifle had been dispatched to Takazze in order to fetch the King and his Elite warriors. He had taken off like a scared goat, his slender legs fairly racing him along–and he would keep up that pace for hour upon hour.

Now a song rose on the wind, three hundred male voices singing the marching-in, and the people of the castle quickly started to gather around the courtyard to welcome and cheer the King’s arrival. Shioni hurried to take her place behind Princess Annakiya.

The King himself rode in first, his full armour and lack of royal robes signalling the seriousness of the occasion. Talaku, the King’s Champion, was next. “He’s part-giant,” someone whispered. Hakim Isoke, standing to Annakiya’s right, gave the person a withering glare. “Giants,” she sniffed, “are stories best kept for scaring little children.”

Talaku looked as though he could walk right off the back of his horse, he was that tall. The poor animal was sweating and blowing, foam-flecked at the mouth, from the effort of carrying such a huge man up into the mountains. Behind him came a brace of donkeys carrying his armour and weapons, and then the main body of warriors tramped in, their lion’s-mane headdresses bobbing in perfect step.

“The Elites,” Isoke instructed Annakiya. “Sheba’s finest, chosen and trained from birth for the warrior life. None can stand against such as these!”

Shioni thought the Elites looked terribly impressive. But then her thoughts returned unbidden to the size of Kalcha’s busy encampment; to the engines of war and the monstrous hyenas. And so few in comparison. She shivered. Perhaps there were worse fates than a brutal whipping to be feared.

After the warriors came the supply carts and train, chock-full of weapons and equipment, and the people who kept an army on its feet–cooks and healers, armourers, blacksmiths and farriers, fletchers and tailors and more.

The King raised his hand. “Sheba!”

“SHEBA!” roared every throat in the place, making the castle shake. “WE LIVE, WE FIGHT, WE CONQUER, O KING!”

The King’s boots kicked up dust as he dismounted. “General, who brought us this report?”

This was the moment Shioni had been dreading. Hundreds of eyes turned to where she knelt just behind Princess Annakiya. She wished she could melt away into the flagstones.

Getu’s salute was as sharp as his sword, and his posture like a flagpole. “Her, my Lord. The ferengi slave-girl. The scouts confirmed her report this morning. The Wasabi army marches here.”

The King knew her. It was he who had purchased her. She had learned that it was his intention that she train with the warriors, becoming both bodyguard and companion to the Princess. Now, more than ever, her life was in his hands. She had chosen to spite a King.

But the King’s tone was as scathing as his response was unexpected: “Since when do we send children and slaves to do our scouting, General?”

“The patrol was captured by the Wasabi, my Lord,” barked the General. “Their absence was not noted by the Captain of the Guard. The slave tricked the watch. She is being punished with hard labour.”

The King paused and, deliberately not looking at him, said, “I am surprised, General. It seems an elephant could enter these gates unannounced. Shall I take her report myself?”

General Getu’s shoulders stiffened until he resembled a petrified tree. “That will not be necessary, my King!”

In front of her, Annakiya stifled a gasp. Shioni bit the inside of her cheek so hard that tears started in her eyes. This was terrible! The General was being blamed for everything she had done. As if anyone in that courtyard could possibly have missed it, the King had hammered the point home by not delivering his rebuke directly to the General. As the two men moved off, talking now in lower voices, General Getu threw her a scowl that would have done a snarling lion proud.

“Huh!” said Isoke, slapping dust off her long robes. “I told you that slave was trouble, Princess! Never was a talent of silver so scorned. Now, let’s return to our lessons.”

Annakiya nodded, and with a quick, sympathetic glance at her slave-girl, followed her tutor with the air of a chastened puppy.

The courtyard descended into a happy chaos of arrival–one warrior being presented with his boy-child, another swinging his girlfriend up into his arms, others breaking for the barracks and a well-earned rest after the night-and-a-day march up from Takazze.

As Shioni set off on the lonely walk back to her duties, a warrior seized her arm. “Talaku would have words with you, slave-girl,” he said. “Come.”

Talaku–whose name appropriately meant ‘the biggest one’, Shioni thought with an inward smile–dwarfed his three-legged stool in the meagre shade of the baobab tree. He was whetting one huge blade of his double-bladed war-axe with studied care. The haft of the weapon alone was taller than Shioni.

His hard-muscled, heavily-tattooed arm lifted and pointed at her, and a voice like the deep groan of an elephant said: “Do not bow to Talaku, slave. Sit and take the shade. Tell me of this witch, this Kalcha. Leave no stone unturned or I will sharpen Siltam here on your belly.” He patted the axe fondly.

Shioni gulped. As she knelt in the shade, a further fifteen or twenty warriors gathered about–the Champion’s Train, they were called, Talaku’s trusted inner circle.

“Don’t scare the girl, Talaku!”

“Her? She don’t scare easy,” said another. Shioni saw that this was the sub-Captain from the patrol, Tariku. So he was an Elite? She ought to have known. “Trains with the warriors.”

“Right, Tariku.” This man popped his knuckles. “Same lot who let a girl find the Wasabi for them, says I.”

But Tariku shrugged off the insult with a laugh. “Even a lion-cub will bite off your finger if you’re not careful.”

“Enough!” growled Talaku. “Speak, cub.”

Shioni wavered, thinking upon Anbessa, and how the King had forbidden any talk about magic or witchcraft. Yes, it could be done without mentioning those things. And so she began to weave her story.

The warriors interrogated her until even hauling rocks began to seem attractive.

Chapter 25: The Curse on the Castle

THAT EVENING WAS FULL moon–the time Kalcha had promised.

On the slopes above the castle, the hyenas were gathering in greater numbers than ever before. In the full moonlight their hunchbacked, mincing steps could clearly be seen, but they could not cross the dry, half-completed moat.

The first Wasabi scouts had arrived just before sunset. Their numbers had quickly swelled as the moon rose over the mountains. Now a dark mass of warriors stretching the width of the valley raised their spears and began to chant war cries and blow rams horns and trumpets. A huge, booming kebero drum kept the musicians company.

Near Shioni’s position on the low keep wall, General Getu and the King were measuring the invading force with experienced eyes.

“Five times our number of fighting men,” the General said. “We should take account of the hyenas too, my Lord. I mistrust their presence.”

The King turned to glare at Shioni. “Rumours of witchcraft are for scaring infants, not Generals experienced in war. This Kalcha is a woman like any other. Perhaps she leads that stinking rabble well. We shall discover.”

Shioni found herself wishing she had told Getu or Talaku the whole truth. But it was too late now.

“Take a hundred Elites and test their strength, General. Two hundred if you’re afraid of those mangy curs down there.”

“My King!”

The General whirled on his heel.

Shioni had been freed of her manacles–for the time being. Doubtless if she made a move toward the gate she’d find her way barred by a spear. Her job was to run along the wall, supplying the warriors with javelins and arrows. It meant she had a perfect view of the battlefield. Most of the other women and children were locked safely in the armoury. She would not have traded places with them for anything in the world.

The main gate, as yet unfinished, had been blockaded with rubble, stones and timbers roughly set by the masons and carpenters. General Getu, Talaku, and two hundred of the Elite warriors therefore descended by rope-ladders hung from the walls behind the castle. These were quickly rolled up again.

Despite the King’s attempt to shame him, the General was taking no chances. Shioni knew that the King’s sharp eyes had noted this fact. The Shebans rapidly organised themselves into neat ranks, bristling with spears and the tall shields held upright in readiness. To a man they were lean and muscular; all dark, leonine grace. Shioni could not help being impressed by their discipline as they came jogging in tight formation around the outer defensive wall.

At the sight of the Shebans, the Wasabi on the hillside raised a roar to assault the heavens. The drum began to throb more urgently and the whole mass of men surged forward, spilling down the hillside like a dark wave rushing to the shore. But this was no disorganised rabble. As they drew closer to the Shebans, scattering hyenas to all sides, the drum sounded a different note and the Wasabi halted again. They parted in the middle.

Kalcha burst through this corridor on her black chariot, pulled by the eight giant hyenas Shioni had seen before, their jaws belling and champing and frothing madly as she lashed them with a long, six-stranded whip. Her midnight robes streamed out behind her, and her eyes blazed like hot coals. Like thunder over the gravelly ground her chariot bore down on the Sheban advance party, who drew together at once and locked shields.

If she had hoped to scare the warriors of West Sheba with her impressive entrance, Kalcha must have been disappointed. These men were veterans. But there was a hush now in the Wasabi ranks and amongst the Shebans watching from the castle; the sudden sense that something great and terrible was about to happen. The warriors braced themselves.

Kalcha threw back her helm, loosening her long black hair to join the snapping of her cloak. Now her eyes seemed even more eerie than before, glowing as though she had lamps burning behind them. She sprang up onto the guard-rim of her chariot, an absurd bit of skill, and on that perch bore down wrathfully upon the Elite warriors of Sheba. She raised one arm and made a shooing gesture, as if she were shooing a thieving stray cat out of her kitchen.

The watchers on the castle first saw the warriors fall like wheat under a scythe, and then there came such a concussion that people clapped their hands to their ears in pain. Of the two hundred, only one man rose: Talaku, and he was swaying as though the earth were rolling beneath his feet. He raised his axe.

“No!” Shioni heard the King gasp.

Kalcha swerved the chariot toward Talaku. She grasped a flail in her right hand now, whirling it above her head as she drove the chariot with the left. The axe-head flashed. One of the hyenas screamed and tumbled beneath the chariot. Kalcha let fly with the flail. The metal ball struck Talaku flush upon the forehead of his helm, and the crunch made every watcher wince. He dropped without a sound.

High-pitched laughter bubbled from the witch as she forced the chariot into a tight, fast turn. Turf sprayed up from the hyenas’ claws tearing the ground. Shioni knew at once what she meant to do. But she couldn’t close her eyes. The horror being played out before her was too overwhelming. She winced at every bump as Kalcha drove her chariot right over the bodies of the fallen Shebans.

“Dear God!” said the King in a low, shaky voice.

Having ravaged General Getu’s advance force, the witch now proceeded down to the castle at a more leisurely pace, taunting them in a booming voice:

“Is this your best, you cowards? Do you think your walls of stone can stop Kalcha, rightful ruler of the lands of Abyssinia? You cannot hide from me!”

The warriors stationed on the walls launched a volley of arrows, but they seemed to bother the witch no more than a swarm of annoying mosquitos. She batted them away with a casual wave of her hand. The Wasabi troops were swarming over the fallen Sheban warriors like ants excited by a tasty morsel. Shioni thought at first that the men would be butchered where they lay, but instead, saw that they were being trussed hand and foot like sheep bound for the cooking pot, and dragged down to the castle.

Kalcha made a mock-bow. “How kind of you to provide my first sacrifices, o King. Now, will you open the gates, or must I come in and fetch you out myself?”

He struck his fists upon the parapet. “Never! Sheba will never bow before your kind!”

But beside her booming tones, he sounded feeble.

“My power is already within the castle, you pathetic little man. Look to the baobab to see the mark of my curse upon your house!”

Shioni had seen it before, but to the castle’s occupants, the sight of a huge red-eyed python slithering up the baobab was a fresh shock. So there was a way down though the trunk into the chamber! Several archers loosed their arrows, but those that struck home simply skittered away off the python’s armoured scales. The snake hissed, slithering higher. A peculiar sparkle began to radiate from the python’s body. Bowstrings snapped, feathers drooped off arrows, and many men simply laid down their weapons with groans of dismay.

A terrible heaviness descended upon Shioni. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep forever. What was the use of fighting Kalcha? She was too powerful. Her hands dropped to her sides. All was lost. She had failed all of her friends and all of Sheba too. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

Suddenly, far away in the hills, a lion roared…

“Never!” declared the King, but he had to hold the battlement for support. “Sheba will never surrender!”

“Is that your final word?”

“It is my final–”

Obeying a hunch, Shioni had ducked beneath the level of the parapet. The King’s reply was cut off mid-sentence. There was a flash like lightning that lit up the hills around them. BOOM! He, together with all the men flanking him, were blasted backwards off the battlements. They dropped like slain sparrows into the courtyard below.

“I do so hate a long argument!” called Kalcha, with another evil cackle. “I’ll be putting my boot on your neck in just a moment!”

Shioni scrambled to the edge to take a look down into the courtyard. Thankfully, they had been stabling some horses temporarily in that area. But it was still an awful height to fall from. Over a dozen warriors had crashed through the roof of a shed, the King was sprawled on a patch of hay, and two warriors had splashed down in the water trough. A couple of men were groaning, having shattered an empty water barrel. But the King lay unmoving.

The lion roared again. A lion roaring in the night… Anbessa? What… oh!

Shioni leaped to her feet with renewed strength. She bounded down from the battlements two steps at a time and dashed across the courtyard, ignoring the din of the witch blasting her way through the blockaded entryway. She ran into the Princess’ room and reached into the space behind the headboard of the bed. Here, the Fiuri lay in a tiny box, carefully wrapped in cloths to keep warm. She looked utterly lifeless.

“So why did Anbessa send me to you?” she asked in dismay.

Chapter 26: The Power is in the Eyes

OUTSIDE, THERE WAS A detonation that made the walls judder and dust leap about on the stone floor. The strident tones of Kalcha were whipping her warriors, whooping and baying their eagerness to conquer the Shebans, into the castle. There were shouts, the clash of sword upon shield, whinnying horses, the screams of men struck by arrows, contrary orders being bellowed by various leaders. The Wasabi would be looting within minutes.

All of the hope that had carried her across a courtyard littered with wounded, groaning warriors, came crashing down as Shioni stared at the unmoving body with its outlandish antennae and curlicue patterning. But… Anbessa couldn’t be wrong! He just couldn’t! He was Lord of… whatever he had said! All the horrors she had seen, the sudden green shoots of hope, crushed–it was just too much to bear. Her hands cupped the Fiuri tenderly, and pressed her to her cheek.

Oh, the poor little creature! To be knocking on death’s door, like everyone now…

Tears of bitter frustration welled from her eyes. They splashed between her fingers and coursed over the Fiuri’s tiny body. Why had the disa’s nectar not worked? How long had she suffered in that bottle, trapped by Kalcha’s curse? Had the witch stolen her powers, and finally her life too? It was so unfair she wanted to scream, cry and groan, or rush out there and swing a blade at someone!

Tiny rosebud lips kissed her cheek. There was a stirring within her fingers, a polite little cough. A piping cry: “I’m alive!”

Shioni gulped. For an endless moment she stood, frozen with disbelief, until the voice added, with more than a drop of impatience, “One tear is enough to work the magic, don’t you know? You’ve half-drowned me.”

A giggle bubbled up beneath her tears. “Er… Fiuri?”

“I do have a name. And a very pretty name it is too.” The Fiuri was kneeling on the palm of her hand, holding her thumb for support. She peered up at Shioni, blinking her huge, luminous jade eyes as though she had woken from a long sleep–which, in a sense, she had. Her wings lifted behind her, uncrumpling before Shioni’s wide-eyed scrutiny.

“Oh dear. Are you my rescuer? You’re disappointingly human. I was rather hoping for a handsome boy-Fiuri.”

“I am,” she said, telling herself to stop staring at the Fiuri’s exotic eyes and her bobbing antennae, which quite ruined her first impression that this creature was somehow related to humans. Was she dreaming? “My name is Shioni.”

“Humph.” The tiny arms made a resigned gesture. “I suppose you’ll have to do.”

Insult or none, Shioni thought, it wouldn’t matter a goat’s breakfast once the Wasabi overran the castle. “We’re in terrible danger–”

“Azurelle is my name. Zi for short.” Her ears pricked up, and they were very sharp, pointy little ears indeed. “I hear the witch! And hyenas!”

“If you’d just stop and listen,” said Shioni, banishing her wayward thoughts in a rush, “I’m trying to explain! Kalcha–well, I rescued you from the bottle in the cave with the python–Annakiya helped–and I went to get the disa to save you but found the Wasabi army instead and they came to attack the castle and the python climbed the baobab and now we’re in big trouble!”

“Slow down, peregrine!” said the Fiuri, but there wasn’t a trace of a smile on her face now. “Kalcha is here?”

“Yes! How do we stop her?”

“She stole my magic! She… she bottled me! For years!”

The Fiuri was trembling so violently that Shioni felt obliged to comfort her. But how could she comfort such a tiny creature without stroking her head like a pet bird? She was no larger than a finch. Shioni settled for pinching her hand between thumb and forefinger. “There there, Zi, you’re out now. I won’t let Kalcha trap you again.”

Azurelle was still snivelling. “The beastly, horrible, rotten old witch! She bottled me…”

It was a thought to sicken the stomach. But Shioni’s mind was racing now. “We can’t strike Kalcha, she just swats people like flies. But what would happen if we killed the python, Zi? No, we can’t, arrows just bounce off its skin…”

“The python upholds the curse,” Zi said. “Did I tell you how glad I am that you saved me?”

“The eyes!” Shioni almost shouted. “The power of a witch is in the eyes!”

Zi grabbed her thumb in alarm. “What are you doing? Don’t shake me around or I’ll fall, Shioni–my wings aren’t working yet!”

“Sorry. Arrows–ah, here,” said Shioni, scrabbling for Annakiya’s slim bow and quiver stowed behind the door. “We’ll shoot that python!”

“In the eye? Great idea!” Azurelle gasped as Shioni darted out of the doorway and down the corridor. “Isn’t it up the baobab though?”

Shioni popped the Fiuri–not without a squawk of protest–into her tunic pocket, and slung the quiver over her shoulder. She nocked an arrow to the bow. The bow’s draw wasn’t as strong as hers, but it was made in the same style and it would have to do.

The courtyard was a chaotic scene. Wasabi were everywhere, battling the warriors of Sheba. She saw Mama crashing a saucepan from her kitchen upon a Wasabi head. Three Sheban archers on the battlements were calmly picking target after target, downing the hyena-painted Wasabi warriors as though they were enjoying target practice. But hordes of Wasabi were streaming into the castle now. Prince Bekele was backed into a corner, grimly holding off two warriors who were taking turns jabbing at his head with their spears. Fire licked hungrily around the stable doorway. And the witch was standing in the gateway, arms crossed, watching it all with an evil smirk upon her lips.

Crouching, Shioni scuttled along the wall toward the baobab, trying to find a clear view of the python. Its wicked red eyes were glinting like unearthly rubies in the bright moonlight. To her mind it appeared to be gloating over the destruction of the castle and the demise of West Sheba.

“Wait!” Zi shrilled. “It won’t work, Shioni. Give me your arrow–the tip of it.”

Shioni ducked down even lower. “Er–what are you doing?”

“Hurry up, no time to argue.”

“Okay… here.”

Azurelle seized the sharp arrowhead and pressed it against her arm. “I might not have much magic left, but I do have my blood.”

“Zi… are you sure?”

“You said arrows bounce off that monster, right?” Azurelle hissed as she pierced herself with the point. “This might be enough to pierce her spell. It’s all I can offer, Shioni. Now shoot!”

Trying to shut out the mayhem around her, hoping against hope that the arrow would fly true, Shioni took aim at the python’s head. As she sighted along the shaft, she was distracted by the sight of the Fiuri’s blood glowing golden on the arrow’s tip and steaming slightly into the cool night air. Blood of liquid gold? How curious! She deliberately shut it out and concentrated on the shot. But the moment the bowstring twanged, she knew she had missed. The arrow flashed through the branches and disappeared into the night. She pulled out another arrow before shaking her head. “There’s just no way, I can’t make that shot.”

“Yes you can,” said Zi. “You have to. Give me that arrow.”

“Zi, no. It’s too difficult–”

“Give me that arrow!” The Fiuri jabbed it into her leg. A furious Fiuri, Shioni thought inanely, transfixed by the sight of the arrow being withdrawn with a golden smear upon its tip. What on earth was a Fiuri made of? Nothing on earth, most probably.

But as she took the arrow with a trembling hand, Zi’s smile was gentle and her voice as clear as a tinkling bell. “Think of the people you love, Shioni, and trust your heart. You can do this.”

Shioni wiped her eyes. It took her several tries to nock the arrow. She forced herself to breathe slowly. She told herself there was no screaming, no fire, no women and children locked in the armoury, no fallen warriors, no witch, no tree… just the eye…

When she was quite empty, the arrow arced upward.

The python’s jewelled right eye shattered. The arrow pierced through to its brain, and the python exploded in a searing flash of fire that lit up the courtyard. Ash floated down from the baobab’s branches. Kalcha screamed. Clutching her heart, the witch screamed such a piercing, inhuman note, that it brought the whole battle to a standstill. Then she crumpled to the ground like a rag doll.

The Wasabi were stunned. Some turned tail at once. Others milled about in confusion or dropped their weapons where they stood. But one group rallied around the fallen body of their leader, bundled her into the chariot, and bolted for the hills, along with the warriors still outside the castle. The Sheban pursuit was slow. Too many had fallen. Too many of the Elites were still injured and unconscious after their first clash with the witch. But those still standing within the castle quickly subdued the remaining Wasabi, and then poured outside to cut their comrades free.

The slaves fell to putting out the fires and leading the horses to safety, while the women and children were let out of the armoury to find their loved ones. They began to line up the wounded in the courtyard and tend their hurts.

And so the battle of Castle Asmat was won.

Chapter 27: The General Tells a Story

“I HAVE AN APOLOGY to make,” said General Getu. “Now, sit.”

He looked as though the day’s events had wrung him out, leaving an exhausted husk of a man in their wake. The General was lying in bed, propped up on several cushions, and his good arm rested atop the thick fur covers. Someone had carefully bundled him up and made him comfortable. The burned left side of his face was in shadow. Shioni wondered if he had arranged the room that way on purpose.

“No, don’t kneel, for God’s sake! I couldn’t bear it right now. I should be the one bowing to you.”

Ducking her head in embarrassment, Shioni moved to perch on the three-legged stool at his bedside. No General would ever bow to her! But what did he want of her now? A few hours ago, she had already spoken to the General, his Captains, Prince Bekele, Princess Annakiya, and Mama Nomuula. The General’s words had made her glow, ‘You’ve proven your loyalty to Sheba, Shioni.’ Even the Prince had agreed.

What was so important it could not wait for the morning?

“It’s late, but the pain keeps me awake,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me, Shioni. Relax. You look like you’re sitting on a cactus.”

It was the first joke she had ever heard pass his lips. Shioni didn’t know how to respond. He laughed, but then hissed through his teeth and closed his eyes. After a moment, he said:

“Shioni, I have hated you since the first day I saw you.”

She nearly fell off the stool. “My Lord?”

“Oh yes. It’s not too strong a word. You might not have known, save I showed you plain in what I said the day you came down from the mountains.” He rubbed his eyes–was it tears he was wiping away? “I am so sorry,” he added. “I was disappointed, angry, and so full of ill-feeling toward you, which you had done nothing to deserve. I wish I could take those words back, every one of them. And afterward, I wished I could take back the years too.”

“I… I just don’t understand.”

The General sighed heavily. “I am not yet old, but I do love to tell stories like an old man. Will you indulge me for just a while?”

Shioni smiled a thin smile. “I’m listening, General.”

“When I was a young man, I fell in love with a ferengi slave. I was an officer in the King’s army, and while it was accepted that a man should marry, he should never ever marry a slave. That was the law even then. But we had a daughter, a little girl with blonde hair, just like yours.”

“Blonde?”

“A word from over the seas,” he explained. “And how I loved her! As my daughter grew older she began to look more and more like me, however, until there were whispers around the barracks and the court. I had made up my mind to try to send them away quietly. But they lived in the slave quarters at the bottom of the gardens of the palace grounds, next to the river. And that year–” his voice cracked “–there must have been a great storm somewhere up the river. The waters rose suddenly in the night and swept the whole slave quarters away. I never saw them again.”

The General lay still for several minutes, his chest rising and falling as if in sleep. Shioni waited patiently. When he spoke again, his tone was even darker than before. “My ill fortune might have ended there, save that I went looking for adventure–and for revenge. I was a bitter, broken man. I wanted to die in glorious battle. Having spoken to a witch, I crossed over the Red Sea, like the Kings of Sheba after me, resolved to seek the home of the dragons.”

Shioni’s chair almost tipped over, as she was leaning so far forward in her fascination with his story. The General chuckled, “Yes, legends of dragons in these mountains are true. No, I will not tell you where to find them. You have enough troubles already. And yes, they are powerful. So powerful, they merely toyed with me and took my hand as punishment for daring to seek them out. They did not stoop to kill me. It was beneath them.”

“Scarred, beaten and humiliated, yet still alive, I returned to Sheba. But there was one final memento from my trip I didn’t learn about until five years later. Call it a dragon’s present, if you wish.”

“Which was…?”

“I have a son, Shioni. He is already huge, and growing every year.”

Her eyes grew wide. She breathed, “Talaku!”

“Right. Talaku. He too is marked by the dragon,” said the General, nodding. “Because of the dragon-venom that bite left in my blood, my son is tougher, stronger, and bigger than other men. He has not stopped growing even into his thirtieth year. And he is also, despite Mama Nomuula’s medications, slowly but surely–oh God! He’s going insane. He knows it too.”

It was too much to absorb all at once. Poor Getu, who had lost so much in his life. Now he was losing his son too. And poor Talaku! To know that he was going mad… she could hardly imagine his agony. She thought back to their conversation. He had been gentle with her, apart from the bad joke about sharpening his axe on her belly. She had seen nothing in his manner or speech that suggested madness.

“I fear for him,” said Getu. “He has never been beaten before. And I don’t know what damage that blow to his head might have caused.”

There was one obvious question, of course. “Why tell me all this?” she said. “These are deep secrets, surely?”

General Getu looked directly at her now. “I wanted you to understand a little of what has marked my life, Shioni, before you took my outburst too much to heart. For too long, I have allowed the mere sight of you to bring back memories of what I lost. I became bitterer, and lonelier, than a man should ever be. I forgot how to be happy. And yet, I had hope for what you might become–hope you proved, and more, by saving all of our skins. That’s why, when you came back from the mountains having broken the King’s law, I was so enraged. I am very, very sorry for my hateful behaviour. Will you forgive me?”

Shioni blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. “I wish I could bring your daughter back.” Her cheeks developed pink spots. “I mean, oh! That was stupid.”

The General let a smile touch his lips. “No, I understand. I used to want my daughter back too, but death is death and she lives in the beyond now. However, I also don’t want you to feel like you’ve no friends in this world.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” She swallowed. “I–well, this slave thinks you’re making too much of a fuss over–”

“In life, Shioni, we should never think ourselves too mighty–or too small. Did you ever wonder why I took Captain Dabir to task?”

“To teach him how to eat cow dung and lice?”

They both laughed. “Ooh,” groaned the General, holding his side. “Don’t make me laugh. Dabir was just a blunt instrument. No, it was to teach Prince Bekele a lesson. Several lessons, in fact. Pray he has learned them, or we’ll all suffer, young lady.”

That was a bit franker than she was expecting!

“Too honest for you?” said Getu, reading her mind perfectly. “The Prince has much work to do to redeem himself. I could argue I am doing this for Sheba’s sake–unleashing you, Shioni. That would be true, and consistent with what I observe in you. But the selfish reason is to release myself from this hatred which has harmed and spoiled so much of these years.”

“It’s forgotten already,” said Shioni, remembering something Mama had once said. It would have felt far too mean to hold those words against him. And immediately, she felt a weight roll off her shoulders too. How odd, and unexpected!

“I will issue orders to my warriors,” said Getu. “The Princess’ bodyguard must be properly trained, not treated like a stray dog.”

“Thank you, my Lord.”

His finger stabbed at her like a dagger. “I will tell them they are not to go easy on you, or they will be punished. For your part, I expect nothing but your best.”

Ah, this must be the infamous Getu double-edged sword Mama had warned about. Shioni smiled. He really was a leader through and through.

“What’s so funny?”

Shioni explained Mama’s assessment of his ways of getting what he wanted. The General started chuckling. “Oh, she said that, did she? That woman’s tongue is sharper than an adder’s fangs! Oh… God, I think I need to rest. I feel sick.”

She rose at once. “Can I bring you anything, my father?”

It slipped out. Shioni couldn’t believe herself. Her face grew redder and redder, until it must have resembled a large beetroot. General Getu’s head jerked on the pillows as though he had been slapped. He stared at her. His eyes were choked with emotions that Shioni couldn’t even begin to name.

“No, nothing,” he grated, finally.

Shioni fled.

Chapter 28: The Enchanted Castle

EARLY IN THE MORNING, a beautiful, still morning and the third after the battle for Castle Asmat had been won, Shioni paused in the doorway of Annakiya’s chamber for a quiet chuckle. Now here was a sight. Azurelle, preening in the mirror as usual. The Fiuri was astonishingly vain at times, but so honest and droll about it that it was impossible not to forgive her this failing. And Annakiya too, who was having Mama Nomuula braid her hair as befitted a Princess, as Shioni was learning to do. All her friends, here in one room.

Her life would be so empty without these people. Perhaps being a slave-girl wasn’t all about blistered fingers and a sore back. They seemed to think she was worth being friends with, even when she landed in trouble. They even wanted to be in trouble with her–craziness!

“Hail the conquering hero,” said Annakiya, noticing Shioni in the mirror.

She groaned. “Will you stop that? I’m still your slave, remember?”

“And the lowest of the low, hardly worth noticing… blah blah. At least my slave will have clean hair for a change. Sit down.” But Annakiya’s tone was gentle. She had been quite withdrawn since her father’s fall, for he had not recovered–he was in a coma and showed no sign of waking. “Neat, brushed hair that even the Hakim Isoke will approve of, no lice, and some decent clothes.”

“I see Mama’s got to you too,” said Shioni, trying not to sound like she was grumbling. After all, she wasn’t in a bad mood! Her head was still spinning. So many secrets, so much to mull over; so many people who could have been dead had Kalcha had her way. “Have you learned the chamber’s secrets yet?”

“It’s as magical and mysterious as ever,” said Annakiya, sighing so gustily that Azurelle had to clutch the mirror-frame in self-defence, fairly squeaking with rage. “I wish I knew who made it and what they made it for! The python’s eye–the one you didn’t shoot–is still stuck in the top of that pedestal. A mason’s chisel couldn’t move it. And Zi has started teaching me how to read the Sabean script on the floor, but it’s all very cryptic, I’m afraid, an older form than even she knows. So it’ll take a lot more work. If Bekele lets it go ahead, that is.”

“Be a fool not to,” said Mama, as scathing of the Prince as ever. “He has bigger problems anyway, like where that Kalcha’s disappeared to like the morning mists.”

“I am more than just a pretty face,” Azurelle put in, not budging from the mirror, however.

Shioni poked the Fiuri with her forefinger. “Wing check?”

“Kindly do not disturb me while I am preening, you ruffian.” She sighed theatrically, flicking her wings, which showed no trace of their former sorry state. “No, however pleasing to the eye these appendages may be–and they do put the most glitteringly gossamer spider-silk to shame, wouldn’t you agree?–I remain ground-bound just like you poor humans. It’s Fiuri magic which helps us fly, you know. And my magic is gone.”

“I’m sorry, Zi.”

But even green-and-black butterfly wings shot through with veins of glistening gold could not divert Shioni from thinking about Prince Bekele, who might become King much sooner than expected. Bekele, who would have his ideas about kingship put to the test. The odd thing was, the King might awake any moment. How awkward. How irritating to feel even a jot of sympathy for the Prince! Yes, much had changed as a result of that battle.

Poor Annakiya. She was burying herself in scrolls rather than facing up to the truth. The almost-truth; the awfulness that might become the truth any moment. Shioni had never had a father to lose, however–rather, she scowled at the mirror, she had lost him long ago. Had he loved her? Had she had been snatched from his arms? Or had he sold her to the slavers as she had heard was sometimes done by poor families? Did he ever miss her, think about her…?

Mama Nomuula, starting on Shioni’s hair, was needling Annakiya about how Shioni’s locks had never seen the teeth of a comb. The Princess was wearing a suitably rueful expression. Mama’s fingers were soothing, and her face peaceful in the reflected lamplight. What made her so fond of a ferengi slave, a troublemaker, a stubborn girl like her who was moulded of a different clay? Mama had set so many bones, bound so many wounds, cared for the General and the King night and day–she must be exhausted! And yet here she was, caring even more.

“How is the General, Mama?”

“It’s a bad break, Shioni. At his age…” she sighed. “That Kalcha had to drive right over him, hadn’t she? Trust him not to complain about no wounds. Seems it takes a dagger just to dig some truth out of the stubborn old goat. How’s I ever to keep him in bed long enough to heal?”

Shioni felt guilty at having his confidence. After all, the General was not so grouchy once he started talking!

“Mama, I wish now I had told him the whole truth about Anbessa and the magic and all. We might not have… well, this might not… and so many people are hurt or dead…”

“My chick!” exclaimed Mama, throwing her arms around Shioni, “Don’t you never blame yourself for nothing! This world’s full of evil folks. I’s seen the Kalchas and the Dabirs, from low-born to high, they’s nothing but the same breed of viper. You did right. The King, he don’t believe in nothing–not in God, not in witches and magic, not even that he could fail. Getu is true, and even he got tangled up in their web of evil. And believe you me–he has his regrets too, things he’d love to put right. That’s a wrong voice in your head, honey. Don’t you be listening to them wrong voices.”

“You may be a mere slave-girl,” said Zi, admiring the fluttering of her eyelashes, “but it was your arrow that changed West Sheba’s fate.”

There–a comment that was pure Azurelle. Shioni was beginning to wonder if all the ridiculous vanity was just for show. Her brain might be the size of a hazelnut, but there was clearly nothing wrong with its inner workings!

She glanced up at Mama Nomuula, thinking: Were she and the General so close that she could know his private feelings on this matter? There was so much more to the General than ever met the eye. Their conversation surely proved it! Could it be that Mama had seen it too? Surely… no. Surely not Mama and the General? But something in the way that they talked about each other gave her a feeling like butterflies in her stomach. She lowered her eyes to hide what she was thinking.

“Mama, will the General recover?”

“I’s given him something to make him sleep,” said Mama, suddenly working busily at Shioni’s hair again, “and set them bones right. Now his body must do its work, just like Talaku and that rock on top of his shoulders, and all them wounded warriors.”

“It was also you, Shioni, who found the baobab’s secret,” added Annakiya. “Did any of you notice, it has started to blossom?”

“But it was dead before–”

“This is a magical castle,” said Zi. “There’s enchantment all around us. If you humans weren’t such insensitive blockheads, you would feel it too.”

Azurelle was right, Shioni thought. The castle was coming alive around her, as though there was a heart beating away somewhere, secretly, that hadn’t been there before.

THE END

Join Shioni and her friends in the next exciting volume: Shioni of Sheba #2: The King’s Horse

About the Author

I hope that you had as much fun reading Shioni of Sheba: The Enchanted Castle as I had imagining and writing it.

Ethiopia is a magical land. It is the place where I live; a land to fall in love with. The backdrop to Shioni of Sheba is the Simien Mountains, north of Gondar; a spectacular, fractured volcanic landscape where unique plant and bird life abounds. This series is grounded in Ethiopian history, which is ancient indeed, and holds mysteries and wonders which have puzzled scholars over the centuries. I hope to delve further into these mysteries in books to come.

www.marcsecchia.com

www.dragonsglory.com

Marc is the bestselling author of over forty books and is published in five languages. Born in South Africa, he lives and works in Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children, 2 dogs, a rabbit, and a variable number of marabou storks that roost on the acacia trees out back. On a good night you can also hear hyenas prowling along the back fence.

When he’s not writing about Africa or dragons, Marc can be found travelling to remote locations. He thinks there’s nothing better than standing on a mountaintop wondering what lies over the next horizon.

If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.com. Every review matters and I read them all!

Where you can find me:

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Twitter: @marcauthor

Email: marcsecchia@gmail.com

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Shioni of Sheba #4: The Sacred Lake

Shioni of Sheba #5: The Fiuri Realms

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Preview of Shioni of Sheba: The King’s Horse

THE SHEER SIDE OF a tall, black silk tent rippled like oily water in the bright sunlight. Shioni was parched. Her throat felt like a ball of dry thistle was stuck behind her tongue, and any attempt to speak would result only in croaky frog speech. A sharp stone was grinding her cheek against her teeth. Her eye cracked open a slit. A long-legged soldier ant was scuttling past her nose across a field of cracked red clay, its huge mandibles waving about like a river crab’s claws searching for food to scavenge.

Her nose itched. But her hands were prevented from moving up for a good scratch. What? Where was she? What was holding her hands? These thoughts seemed to trickle through her overheated brain as sluggishly as sweet honey seeping from a honeycomb. Her eyelid seemed stuck to the eyeball. The mere act of opening it further demanded a gruelling effort.

Shioni finally realised she was lying on her left side, with her hands chained in front of her to an iron stake hammered deep into the ground. The stake could have held an elephant. It was more than enough for her.

“Wake her up!”

Ice-cold river water dashed against her head like full force of the Jinbar waterfall. Shioni groaned as a dozen hurts started to yammer their pain all at once. That woman’s voice… she knew… Kalcha! The witch-leader of the Wasabi! Her eyes snapped open. But the sunlight was so intense that she had to squint in order to see anything.

“Get up, slave!”

Kalcha’s voice was as cold and angry as the day she first spied on her at the Wasabi camp up in the high mountains. Shioni recalled her shock at upon realising the strength of the Wasabi forces, and the sheer, unnatural bulk of the hyenas that had pulled Kalcha’s chariot into battle. Her exact words that day drummed through her mind: ‘Then will I hold in my hands the power to change you all, to make you men, men such as this world has never seen! We will build our kingdom of death and destruction, and you will become kings and enslave all mankind!’ Hyenas being changed into men? Kalcha’s ambitions had been thwarted only by an arrow shot into the brain of her pet python by Shioni herself.

And only Azurelle’s golden blood had allowed the arrow pierce her enchantment.

A cruel kick to her stomach lifted Shioni off the ground. She crashed against the iron pole and lay stunned, slumped like a child’s blanket dropped carelessly on the ground. She heard herself sobbing at the pain, and bit her lip until she tasted blood. No tears for the witch! She’d hold her tears whatever the cost.

“Kneel before Kalcha, worthless slave!”

Two pairs of hands set her roughly upright. Supporting her body against the hot metal, Shioni opened her eyes again. She found Kalcha’s beautiful face just inches from her own, staring at her with eyes as grey as storm clouds. But her beauty was like cold marble, and her smile, which on another woman might have dazzled and delighted, was so loaded with malice that it became a thing of disturbing ugliness. The hatred and cruelty in her heart was chiselled upon her features, giving her an air of wild, deadly splendour.

She seemed pleased. “You fiendish child of the snows!” she said. “At last I have you within my grasp. You stole my Fiuri! You destroyed my python! Now you will pay for ruining the hour of my greatest triumph.”

Shioni should have been overawed. But her mind seemed half-asleep, functioning at the speed of a hurrying snail. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind: “Why aren’t your eyes red anymore?”

The witch gave a howl of fury! She shrieked, “Because you broke my curse! It was my castle, all mine, until you spoiled everything! Now I have to start again.” With hateful glee, she added, “So many more sacrifices are needed. I must have blood. Buckets, of blood, yes, rivers of it. My power is growing every day.”

Shioni had no answer for the witch but to shudder.

Kalcha snapped her fingers. “Have you met my pets?”

A huge, scarred muzzle pressed against Shioni’s head. Black, scabby lips parted to reveal fangs as long as her thumb. “Give us this youngling for a snack, mistress,” growled the hyena. “She will never bother you again.”

Shioni tried to pull away from hyena’s putrid muzzle, but the chains prevented her from moving far. The beast rammed its head into her shoulder, shoving this way and that, playing with her like a cat amusing itself with a field mouse. The other massive, stoop-shouldered hyenas were nosing about her too, now, yapping and whining in excitement. She had nowhere to go. Grinning fangs encircled her.

Shioni, Shioni…

Kalcha, sinking her bony fingers into Shioni’s cheeks, said, “My spies are already inside your castle. Soon I will know all your secrets–especially yours, you annoying little cockroach. No mere slave will stand in Kalcha’s path! And I am already in your mind and in your dreams. Be afraid, little slave. I will teach you the meaning of fear.”

Shioni! Something was pinching her earlobe.

“Now, my pets, know your enemy! Taste her flesh, crush her bones. Teach her the power of Kalcha!”

“We hear, o great Mistress!” Slavering jaws rubbed drool down her leg.

“I’ll choke you!” Shioni’s voice quavered. Teeth clamped upon her leg. “No, nooooo–!

Table of Contents

Shioni of Sheba

Table of Contents

Map of West Sheba

Glossary

Chapter 1: A Strange Encounter

Chapter 2: Black Magic Castle

Chapter 3: Hearing Things

Chapter 4: Warriors at Play

Chapter 5: Feeding Lions

Chapter 6: Mama Nomuula Speaks

Chapter 7: Well, Well…

Chapter 8: A Night-Time Stroll

Chapter 9: Buildings and Births

Chapter 10: Famous, What?

Chapter 11: The Captain’s Coffee

Chapter 12: A Different Lesson

Chapter 13: The King’s Horse

Chapter 14: A Rip-Roaring Adventure

Chapter 15: What Kind of a Friend are You?

Chapter 16: Reading the Scrolls

Chapter 17: Mama Makes a Plan

Chapter 18: A Trunkful of Advice

Chapter 19: Snaky, Snaky on the Wall

Chapter 20: Disobeying The King

Chapter 21: Finding the Wasabi

Chapter 22: Kalcha Reveals Her Plans

Chapter 23: Trouble on the Horizon

Chapter 24: Punishment

Chapter 25: The Curse on the Castle

Chapter 26: The Power is in the Eyes

Chapter 27: The General Tells a Story

Chapter 28: The Enchanted Castle

About the Author

Preview of Shioni of Sheba: The King’s Horse