“Z’Nelia?” Ashuru scoffed. “Lord Wulfston, Z’Nelia is queen of a small country on the other side of Africa. She doesn’t have to power to wreck a ship on the west coast!”
Wulfston was about to protest, when he saw the expression on Barak’s face. The man was at war with himself. In the silence left by Wulfston’s lack of reply, the Grioka finally said, “Queen Ashuru, it is true.
Z’Nelia does have such power.”
The whisper of a drawn breath swept through the assembly, and suddenly everyone was staring at Barak. “Why,” asked Ashuru, “have you never told us this?”
“The time was not fulfilled, until today,” the Grioka replied.
“And so we have had only rumors!” the queen said angrily. “Four years ago the Savishnon warriors were stopped in Z’Nelia’s lands… and no one knew how. All that remains where the battle took place are the Dead Lands, which no Seer may investigate, for to seek to See into them is to die!”
Wulfston had deliberately kept himself open to Reading all this time, and now even his limited powers were overwhelmed with Ashuru’s fury. Thank the gods it was directed at Barak, and not at him! The queen continued, “My own teacher died, his spirit trapped in the Dead Lands, attempting to discover what had happened at Johara-and all the time, Barak, you knew?”
Barak said, “This tale I intended never to tell.”
The members of the Assembly stirred again, and Ashuru voiced their rage. “We face the Savishnon, and possibly Z’Nelia’s powers as well, and you would have left us in ignorance?”
But it was to Wulfston Barak spoke. “Shangonu willed that I repeat the tale that is responsible for your presence here, Lord of the Black Wolf. I fear you will have to fight Z’Nelia, whether you wish it or no. If I tell now of Z’Nelia’s defeat of the Savishnon, and the making of the Dead Lands, perhaps you will learn something that will allow you to survive.”
The Assembly fell silent, and even Ashuru’s mental fury abated as all waited for the Grioka to begin.
Barak’s words were stock phrases of bards the world around, but as Wulfston listened, the Assembly faded away, and they were at the city of Johara, four years earlier. It was like nothing he had ever experienced listening to a bard; he knew things as if he had lived in Africa all his life, felt the apprehension of the people of Johara…
Hordes of desert warriors swept down from the north, looting and burning and killing. In the name of their god, Savishna, they slaughtered all who opposed them. Their bloody trail spanned half the continent, but narrowed sharply at Johara, the richest and most beautiful city in Africa.
The six armies of Savishna surrounded the city’s fortified walls while the commanders waited to see what futile ransom the royal family would offer. They failed to reckon with the powers and determination of Queen Z’Nelia.
Z’Nelia was not in Johara, although her Seers wove visions of deception to make the Savishnon Seers perceive her there. Two days before the armies arrived, Z’Nelia and her family had traveled to Mount Manjuro, to use their powers to waken the sleeping fire demon.
Only the queen returned from that perilous journey, her mount dropping with exhaustion as she arrived within the gates. “Tell our enemies,” she instructed the Seers whose vigil had protected her city, “that here Savishna will meet his match.”
As the message was delivered, Mount Manjuro thundered with renewed life.
When the Savishnon did not flee as she had hoped, Z’Nelia stood upon the parapets and summoned the fire demon. The sky grew dark. The mountain unleashed a river of death.
Liquid fire poured onto the plains surrounding Johara, burning everything in its path. The Savishnon had no time to flee; thousands of warriors were consumed in minutes. The few survivors fled, their dreams of conquest shattered.
Savishna sought revenge.
Strength already depleted from the steady use of her powers, Z’Nelia now fought to save her own people from the force she had unleashed. The river of fire lapped at the walls of Johara.
Other Movers supported her efforts, but fell, one by one, their powers exhausted. Z’Nelia stood alone, diverting the river of fire around her city, protecting her people to the last of her strength.
When finally the burning river began to harden into rock, it surrounded the entire city, but Johara itself remained an island in the frozen flow. Z’Nelia had saved her people.
The cost was all her strength. She dropped where she had stood, and as she lay helpless, a Savishnon spy who had infiltrated the city struck her with a knife!
He was killed at once by the mob, but it appeared he had accomplished his revenge. There were no healers for Z’Nelia. Every Mover in Johara lay unconscious, powers exhausted from trying to control the fire demon.
Seers rushed to Z’Nelia’s aid, stanching the blood flowing from her wound, but until the next day no one with healing powers could help her… nor could the Seers reach her wandering spirit.
From the full moon to the third quarter, the healers of Shangonu’s temple kept Z’Nelia’s heart beating.
Seers searched the planes of existence for her spirit-and their own spirits failed to return.
When the scattered Savishnon spread to other lands, bringing incoherent tales of what had happened at Johara, other Seers left their bodies to find out the truth-and lost themselves in turn. Hence the legend that to attempt to See into the Dead Lands-the lands ravaged by the fire demon-was to die.
The tale ended. Wulfston blinked, astonished to be back in the Karili Assembly.
He gathered his wits, and stared at Barak. “But Z’Nelia is alive and well now,” he said. “What happened?”
“I do not know. When the lava cooled I left Johara. Some say the queen’s eventual return to life and health was not accomplished by the priests and priestesses, that Z’Nelia found her own way back from the home of the dead. And she returned with more power than any Mover ever dreamed of possessing.”
“That is an interesting story,” Ashuru put in, “but there are many things that it does not tell-such as what happened to the others who went to the volcano. Z’Nelia’s family. Who were they? Why didn’t they return to Johara with her?”
“The others were Z’Nelia’s husband, their son, and Z’Nelia’s sister,” Barak said. “Some say the fire demon demanded their lives in sacrifice.”
“And what do people say who know that a volcano is a natural object, and not a god or a demon?”
Wulfston asked.
“They say nothing… as Queen Z’Nelia would have it.”
Wulfston wondered, “Have you been in Z’Nelia’s presence since the events you have just described?”
He saw and felt Barak’s hesitation, but before the Grioka could answer, the doors of the Assembly chamber were flung violently open, banging resoundingly against the walls, then remaining in place as a newcomer strode into their midst.
It was a plump, round-faced young man in elaborate green robes, carrying a spear like a walking staff.
The spearhead glittered, and it took Wulfston a few moments to realize that it was actually made of a huge, long-cut diamond.
Its owner could not be even twenty years old. He was slightly shorter than Wulfston, and had the same brown skin tone. Again that whisper of surprise went through the gathered rulers, as it had when they first saw Wulfston.
But it was Barak’s reaction Wulfston noted. The Grioka shrank back for a moment, as if he feared the younger man, but then he straightened determinedly, staring defiantly.
The boy turned his attention to Ashuru. “Members of the Karili Assembly,” he said with a gesture toward Wulfston, “why has this prisoner not been sent to me as I ordered?”
“Because, Prince Norgu,” Ashuru replied with a slight stress on the title, “you have no right to order the Karili in anything. You have our respect as ruler of the Warimu, no more. If you care to join our Assembly-”