Convergence

Zhura held Keya's head against her yoni, sliding down so that she could lay flat on the mats. The priestess played Zhura's little organ like an instrument. Licking up and down her slit, teasing the nether lips. Spreading Zhura open with fingers to delve hungrily inside. Spearing Zhura's weeping channel with her tongue. Nibbling once more on her little pearl, until Zhura felt on the verge of an orgasm. Then Keya eased off, so she could take Zhura down that blissful path all over again.

Lila's muffled wails continued. Zhura could hear just how wet she was, as Musa plunged into her, as flesh slapped together. The sweet sounds abated, and Zhura was dimly aware of the men switching positions. Ngo took his place behind Lila. Musa sighed with pleasure as the maid eagerly took him into her mouth.

Keya finally took mercy on Zhura, licking her to an orgasm that was prolonged by deft jabs of the priestess's tongue. Zhura clutched her lover's braids, riding out the convulsions of her climax.

Once she recovered, she scooted back, knowing that if she didn't Keya would have kept the sweet torture going. "Why in hells are you still wearing that?" Zhura pulled the wrap over the priestess's head and off.

The herb-witch could see that Ngo was trembling, more erratic in his thrusts, gasping each time he slammed into Lila's eager yoni. Zhura slid a hand along the top of his firm ass cheeks. She leaned her head against his rocking hip.

"Feed me," she urged. Her fingers ran down the crack of his ass, until they grazed his roiling balls and her thumb teased his pucker.

Ngo cried out. He pulled out of Lila with a wet sucking sound, and plunged his cock into Zhura's open mouth. An instant later, her palate flooded with his hot seed. She continued to fondle him as he pulsed into her mouth. She gulped it down and then sucked out a few drops more, savoring his and Lila's pungent saltiness.

Zhura held Ngo there, jerking in her grasp, until he was spent. As he sprawled on the mat, she saw that Keya had joined her former maid on all fours, sucking off Musa. The hunter, eyes shut, groaned with pleasure.

While the two women played with his bobbing cock, Zhura pressed a finger to her lover's slit. The priestess was damp, but not near wet enough. Zhura licked a finger, her saliva still thick with Ngo's seed. Then she reached under and began to diddle Keya's little pearl.

Keya moaned as she sucked Musa's balls. Soon her yoni was drooling nicely. Zhura pushed two wet fingers into Keya's cleft, finding her inner spot. The priestess began to groan. Zhura rubbed. She rubbed faster and faster, until her hand was a blur in the flickering firelight. As Keya neared her climax, Zhura's fingertips tapped on the little bundle of nerves in the priestess's core. Keya gasped. Her juices spurted out over the mat and Zhura's hand.

Zhura licked her hand and Keya's thighs clean, feeling a rush of new strength. She heard the hunter cry out in his native Kut tongue. When Zhura finished between Keya's thighs, the priestess turned around. A streak of white seed adorned her forehead. Zhura held her lover and licked that off too.

Sated, Zhura and Keya sat down together. The priestess nodded her permission as Ngo picked up the summoning stone. Lila turned over on her back, her head between Musa's feet. Zhura regarded at each of them, four people she had come to love, and felt bound to protect as best she could.

"No," she said. "Not yet."

They all looked at her.

Something inside Zhura told her to wait. To savor this moment with trusted companions, flush with the feeling of arcane power. A test was coming, but later. For now, she only wanted to be with her friends.

"Not yet, Ngo. We can summon Blossom tomorrow."

"But I wanted to come again," Lila pouted.

Zhura gazed hungrily at the little maid's gaping wet slit.

"Then allow me," she said. Zhura slid away from Keya and between Lila's spreading thighs.

**

The next day, Zhura and Keya stayed in camp, washing mats and clothing, while the men ventured beyond the ancestral wards, out into the southern hills. Their hunting was the group's only steady source of coin. Lila walked to a nearby market to trade roots and herbs for millet dough and a bit of salt for the evening meal. Apparently, the maid had discovered a group of salt traders who understood Ikanjan, and she enjoyed flirting with them.

Brimming with vigor from the night before, Zhura bent over her own work, scrubbing clothing over a washboard and a pot of water. Even on their adventures, life had the same rhythms as it had back in the village of Boma.

She still agonized over her reluctance to summon Blossom. Once the group had help from Blossom, she could leave them. She could go to the palace on her own. Even if it took days to see her father, the others would be relatively safe.

She could only hope that she wouldn't be thrown into a cell as a fraud claiming royal blood.

"My Lady!" Lila cried. The distraught woman rushed along the path towards them, basket clutched atop her head. "My Lady!"

"What is it?" Keya said.

Zhura set down her washboard. She picked up her staff, and stepped out towards Lila. The maid, in tears, fled past Zhura. Beyond, the herb-witch saw two people approaching, walking casually through the field.

"What's wrong?"

"It's... it's..." Lila stuttered, dropping her basket.

"Ranthaman San," Zhura said in shock, recognizing one of the pair. She heard Keya's gasp.

"...it's Jinai." Lila finished. "You must hide, Lady Keya."

"I think it is too late for that," Keya said.

The priestess came slowly to stand by Zhura's side. The herb-witch scanned their surroundings, wary of an ambush. She saw no sign of anyone else, other than farmhands planting in the distant fields.

Ranthaman wore his curved sword at his hip. Keya's former lover appeared unarmed, but Keya had told Zhura enough to know that Jinai was dangerous. She was tall, angular and dark, hair tied into a small topknot, with waves of kinky hair flowing to the sides of her scalp.

So this is Jinai.

"Zhura," Ranthaman beamed. He was as flawlessly dressed and groomed as always. Like Jinai, he wore the fluid, light robes of the Ikanjan people. "I had not expected to meet you in Morore." His gaze slid to Keya. "My Lady, you are said to have died back in Namu. It seems the Ancestors have doubly blessed us."

"So it seems."

Ranthaman was the only one smiling. Jinai's burning stare lingered on Keya, and then turned to a frank appraisal of Zhura.

The merchant showed his open hands. "May we talk?"

Zhura glanced at Keya. They both nodded.

"Whatever you flee from in Namu, it is not my concern. I believe you to be an honorable woman, Zhura. I owe you my life. And I am aware that certain members of my House can be... single-minded," he said.

"Then what brings you here?" asked Zhura.

"Jinai, newly retained by House San, recognized Lady Keya on the Brassbelt a few days ago," he replied.

"That seems unlikely," Keya said, quietly.

"You are quite recognizable, my Lady," Ranthaman said.

"Only to a few, without my mask. Jinai would not have been on the Brassbelt if she was not looking for me."

"I knew you didn't die on Silmani Point," Jinai said. "I didn't come here to find that out."

"She speaks the truth. I have not hired Jinai simply to track down her former employer."

"Then what brings you here?" asked Zhura, again.

"Gratitude," said Ranthaman. He regarded their crude camp. "I have a comfortable home in the Upper City. I have contacts among the traders and nobles here. I offer help to a friend."

"Your offer is a gracious one," Zhura said. "We will discuss it with our companions when they return. Where can we reach you?"

"I run a boarder house on the Brassbelt to hire caravaners. It is called the Blue Buffalo, just across from the statue of King Yende. You may ask for me there. We will share marula wine, like the Nubic people do, and speak of our travels."

He bowed his head slightly to leave. But Jinai remained still, focused on Keya.

"Did you find the adventure you craved?" Jinai asked.

Keya, uncharacteristically silent, only nodded.

"Are you happy?"

"I am," Keya said. "I ...am sorry for what I said to you, in front of my brother. I was horribly unfair to you."

The merchant had turned away to afford the pair privacy. Zhura found that she could not.

"You did what you had to, in order to escape," said Jinai.

"Just so."

"And you are free of the demon?" Jinai asked, eyeing Zhura, and the bangles at their wrists.

"I am."

"Take care of yourself, Keya. There are great challenges ahead."

Keya's eyes narrowed, though they shone with emotion. "Thank you, Jinai. For more than I can say," Keya whispered. A tear rolled down her cheek.

The priestess raised her voice, loud enough for Ranthaman to hear. "Barasa wants summoning stones. The only working stones he knows of are Blossom's and those the Thandi have. Since both could be found in Morore... that's the real reason you are here."

Ranthaman smiled. "Barasa does not rule House San," he said. "And I have been trading here in Morore for many years." He beckoned to Jinai, and they walked away.

Zhura frowned, wondering what she had just seen. What was Ranthaman hiding? And was Jinai trying to give Keya a warning?

She looked to Keya. But the priestess, sobbing, turned away.

In the evening, when the men returned from hunting and trading a carcass for vegetables, the five companions gathered again.

"I am sorry, Lady Keya. I should not have let Jinai see me," Lila said, not for the first time.

"I don't think it was you she saw first, Lila." Keya said. "I think they already knew we were here."

"Ranthaman is clearly hiding something," Ngo said. "Even if Jinai saw you along the Brassbelt, did they trail you out here to the edge of Morore without us knowing?"

"What does Ranthaman gain by hiring her?" Zhura asked. She stared at the coals of their fire, watching sparks rise against the rosy twilit sky.

"I am sure that it was Jinai who convinced Barasa that I was still alive. Whether Ranthaman admits it or not, she is here because they want something from me. From us."

"Our problems seem to be stacking, one atop the other," Zhura grumbled.

"We should all go to the palace with you," Keya said. "We must stay together now."

"What about you?"

"Ranthaman already knows I am here. The secret is out. If, as he says, he is uninterested in dragging me back to face charges of witchcraft, why would King Yende hold me?"

Zhura looked to each of the others. Each one nodded in turn.

Keya smiled, placing a hand on Zhura's shoulder. "Don't worry about me. A palace is my natural habitat."

At this hour, the gates to the palace and the Upper City would be closed. "It is settled then. Tonight we keep a watch, and tomorrow we go to see my father," Zhura said. "All of us."

Chapter 2

At bright dawn, the five companions ventured up the main road, north towards the Brassbelt that ran through the kingdom from east to west, and the Upper City that loomed it all. Morore had awakened to a new day, with women carrying water atop their heads, men hauling goods to market, and shopkeepers opening their gates for business.

Everything the companions owned, they brought with them. Zhura, Lila and Ngo carried large baskets - Ngo's strapped to his back. Keya was swathed in layers of wraps and a hat that covered all but her face and hands. She chatted with Ngo and Lila, eager to share all of the lore she'd learned in the company of storytellers.

"Namu is a much larger city, but haphazard in the way it is built. Whoever planned Morore was very wise. Except for the parts in the north that are barren and rocky, it is shaped like a wheel, with these main streets as the spokes, leading from the mesa in the center to the fertile farmland on the edges. The Brassbelt and the river converge at the heart of the city. Zhura, this is the same river that runs by your home village of Boma, but here it is called the Big Mongoose..."

Zhura nodded absently, noting that only she and Musa seemed to care about possible threats. She felt as if she'd never been in a city so large before, though of course she had. At any moment, the herb-witch expected agile Thandi women to leap out of the alleys... or to be surrounded by a host of green-plumed askari from House San. A sea of granaries, each the size and shape of tiny round huts, crowded behind the shops. They seemed a likely place for concealment, and Zhura eyed them carefully as they passed.

"The only drawback to the planning of Morore is that the mesa has no natural water source or space to store food. So the nobles live in perpetual fear of being besieged and cut off from food and water," Keya went on. "That's the story behind all the granaries."

As the street began to fill with more traffic, Zhura's creeping unease began to subside. Palm oil pressers and moneylenders were already doing a brisk trade, with customers already crowding around their gates. As the companions approached the Brassbelt, the road only became more crowded.

"Those walled-in buildings over there house the furnaces of the Casting Guild," Keya said, pointing towards the river. "They are the masters of brass-crafting. And plazas like these," she nodded at the teeming market grounds on either side of the street, "are where they celebrate the Festival of the Bursting Belt... only two months from now, all throughout the Kingdoms."

Zhura hoped to be gone from the Kingdoms in two months.

At the broad dirt road called the Brassbelt, the companions waited while a caravan of elephants, buffalo and drovers with bead-adorned hair plodded by. Baobabs with painted trunks lined the road. The Upper City soared above, a mountain of umber brick and sandstone red. The squat towers of the clans reached even higher, atop the center of the mesa.

"Malindi is the ruling clan," Keya went on. "But Vong and Busara clans are also quite powerful. The Vong once ruled the kingdom, when it was part of Chide. Then Yende, called the hero of the Battle of Bandiri Slopes, forged a new kingdom, Morore, out of Chide. Yamwali Clan overthrew the Vong in what remained of Chide. So now, a generation later, it is rumored that the Vong seek to win back everything they lost. Isn't it all fascinating?"

They followed the Brassbelt for only a few minutes before they reached the ramp that led up the steep cliff of the mesa. The five companions joined a colorful stream of supplicants and laborers that ascended towards the open Road Gate, passing wealthy shoppers and traders coming down.

The ramp's surface was rough beneath Zhura's sandals, pebbled as it was with pieces of brick and stone. She guessed that without the cobbling, the incline would be nearly impassable during heavy rains.

Zhura swooned then, as if struck by a wave from the sea. A cry rang out, as clear as the blue sky, from the distant edge of the city.

"Did you hear that?" Zhura regained her balance, but she still felt unsteady. She turned back to Keya.

But Keya wasn't there. None of Zhura's friends were there.

**

An army waited on the Brassbelt. The sky over the city was the angry hue of steel.

A column of elephants, armored with face plates and iron trim, stood rumbling along the road, stretching at least two hundred paces to the east. These were not the mild, tamable elephants of the forest, but the giant tuskers of the savanna, their shoulders twice the height of a tall man.

The elephants carried light howdahs on their backs, but no riders. Men and women stood alongside the beasts, hundreds of them, bearing light spears and bows, jugs of water and baskets of food.

Anathe strode up the ramp with her followers, lissome and strong like she was.

Waiting for her at the Road Gate was a throng of Nubic dignitaries and mercenary leaders. The former wore brass jewelry and robes trimmed with gold thread. The latter were the bare-chested, painted men of the northern forests. Even they looked wide-eyed upon Anathe, in her brief skirt and halter, at her long limbs adorned with Thandi scars in sinuous patterns. For she was like nothing they'd never seen.

**

"Are you well?" Keya asked, frowning with concern. She and Ngo held Zhura's arms. Someone had set her basket on the ground.

"I had a daydream," Zhura said, dizzily. "I'm all right."

Their stopping had slowed traffic. Red-plumed guards stared at them from beside the great wooden doors and atop the outer wall.

Recovering, Zhura picked up her basket and set it atop her head again. "Let's go," she said.

Inside the city walls, the stream of people thinned, but it continued down a cobbled street so narrow it felt like a tunnel. Blocky buildings crowded, three and four stories high on either side. Zhura was reminded of the tight corridors of the burial mound on the Night of the Forgotten. Even in the densest forest, she'd never felt so confined.

What had she just experienced? Despite what she told Keya, she had never had daydreams before.

She had imagined herself as Anathe. But it hadn't felt like imagination.

Keya came alongside her. "This is..." the priestess marveled. She clutched her hat, craning her neck to see the heights of the towers.

"...Fascinating?"

"I've never seen a place so tightly packed. It's smaller than Gold City, but thousands of people must live here, piled atop one another," Keya said.

"To see who can live on the highest hill," Zhura muttered. "This is just like Namu."

Keya leaned against her affectionately as they walked. "Perhaps," she said. "But this is part of your history. You must have been born near here. Perhaps, as an infant, you were carried along this very street."

The street led to a curtain wall with a bronze double gate. Elephant's heads were carved into the metal.

"This is the palace gate," Ngo said.

More red plumed guards waited there, questioning everyone who sought to enter.

"Why are you here?" one of the guards asked Zhura, at the head of their group.

"To see King Yende. I am his kin."

The guard waved them into an enclosure before another bronze gate. When the gatehouse was full of about twenty applicants, the outer gate was closed and the inner doors opened into the royal palace of Morore.

A large courtyard lay beyond the gatehouse, dominated by a massive, drum-shaped tower on the far end that must have been the central part of the palace. Smaller buildings of red stone surrounded the tower.

More guards ushered the visitors through the courtyard, which was busy with the comings and goings of washerwomen, porters and other laborers. The trumpets of elephants sounded from a high stable along the courtyard wall.

They passed through another gate, to a smaller courtyard along the western wall of the palace. This one was packed with people.

"Wait here," the guards ordered.

The companions pushed through the crowd to a corner where they could set down their burdens. The enclosure reeked of stale people and fresh animals. Here was a farmer with a wicker crate full of chickens. There was a troupe of entertainers wearing masks like demons. Beyond were two men arguing, ready to come to blows but for their friends holding them apart. Zhura saw priests in red paint, women nursing infants, and noble youths in fine dress. All here to see King Yende, apparently.

Musa squatted in a corner, relaxed, and closed his eyes. Ngo and Lila sat upon the baskets and began to play their guessing game.

"We could be here all day," Zhura said. And the next day.

Keya nodded. "Someone will come," she said with unjustified optimism. "What happened to you on the ramp?"

Zhura shook her head in confusion. "I saw Anathe. On that same ramp, leading her elephants, and meeting with the Nubic war leaders." She paused. "No, I didn't see her. I was her. For an instant."