1

From the shining splendor of Gebbi Senafa – the Imperial Palace – to the sad squalor of its slums, the Jewel City buzzed with activity, the source of which was the arrival of the visitors from the Fidi lands. After the Emperor had reached his decision on the Fidis’ fate, he and the rest of the Degen Jassi – all except the Leba, Gebrem – departed from the ship. Jass Eshana’s soldiers used sturdy ropes to secure the crippled vessel to the dock, preventing it from breaking up and sinking.

Once the ship was stable, other Matile ascended the ramp. Some carried painted, earthenware pots of kef, and others had baskets of injerra, the flat disks of bread eaten throughout the Matile Mala. Still others brought steaming bowls of wat, a spicy stew that seared the tongue like fire.

Healers came as well – men and women garbed in unadorned chammas. They carried their herbs and talismans in leather pouches, and their surgical implements rested, like swords, in scabbards. With the healers came the Keepers of the Dead, who were laden with bundles of fragrant leaves that would mask the odor of the Fidi who had not survived their long voyage. Later, they would prepare the foreigners’ bodies for burial.

As the day passed, throngs of curiosity-seekers came to the docks to catch a glimpse of the strange ship. Guards posted by Jass Eshana refused to allow any of the gawkers aboard, and eventually the crowds diminished. But the gossip did not. A storm of rumors swept from the high-class kef-houses to the seedy slum taverns called talla-beits; from the market squares to the jewelers’ shops; from weapon-makers’ forges to thieves’ dens.

Some thought the Fidi were escaping from some unknown calamity in their homeland – perhaps Storm Wars of their own. Others believed the foreigners were the harbingers of an invasion. But the most frequent conjecture was that Nama-kwah herself had brought the Fidi to Khambawe, for reasons known only to her Amiya, Tiyana, who would soon reveal the Goddess’s purpose to all.