CHAPTER SEVEN

Behind his closed eyes, Kyroun beheld the past in which Jass Gebrem, Tiyana and most other Matile believed, and the present they now endured. It was a weave of images gleaned from dusty tomes and ancient legends; stories carved in sculptures, woven in tapestries, sung in songs – all of it filtered through a mental prism that rendered the Matiles’ history as half-truth, half-dream, beginning with the legend of Etiya ...

Long ago, in the Beforetime, the land called Abengoni was encircled by the coils of an enormous serpent called Adwe. The people of Abengoni could not live on the land; Adwe enveloped all, and even the sun could not penetrate the darkness cast by the serpent’s vast bulk. Not only did Adwe refuse to allow people to dwell on the surface of Abengoni; the serpent demanded tribute from them as well. So impoverished were the people of Abengoni that all they could offer Adwe in return for their miserable existence was the lives of their first-born children when they reached adult age.

The people lived in darkness and despair, even as they longed for the time before Adwe had tightened his coils around their world. They remembered the sky and the sun, the grass and the trees, the sea and the rivers, the abundance of animals. Yet even as Adwe blotted out those memories, the yearning for what they once had did not die among the people; and as time passed, they planned ways to get it back.

Singly, or in small, determined groups, the people sought ways to slay Adwe, or, at least, to escape the oppressive presence of the serpent’s bulk. All their schemes ended in their deaths. They would not be the only ones who died. When Adwe became angry, he would twist his coils, and that twisting would mercilessly shake Abengoni, and the guilty and innocent alike would die.

Whether he twisted or remained quiescent, Adwe continued to demand sacrifices, and the people descended further into hopelessness.

One day, a young woman named Etiya was chosen to be the sacrifice. And this time, the sorrow was even deeper than usual when the sacrifices were made, for Etiya was a singer, and the strains of her sweet voice provided the only hint of brightness in the gloomy netherworld to which Adwe had relegated them.

When the time came for her to be sacrificed, Etiya went willingly to the place from which Adwe would claim her, as he had countless of others before her. Resistance had by then become unthinkable. Yet Etiya was determined not to die meekly and quietly. She would sing one last song before the serpent took her.

And when Adwe came, his unimaginable bulk filling the horizon, Etiya sang. The words of her song bespoke hope and defiance, and the melody reached down to where her people huddled in their endless darkness and misery. If for only a moment, Etiya’s song lifted them from the bleak depths into which their spirits had fallen.

Adwe paid no attention to the song. The serpent cared nothing for either bravery or beauty, both of which were abundant in Etiya. But her song extended far beyond Adwe, and even beyond Abengoni itself. Etiya’s song travelled to the Realms of a pantheon of deities called the Jagasti. Although the Jagasti knew nothing of Abengoni, they hearkened well to the words of the song. And as the deities listened, they took pity on the singer of the song and her beleaguered people, and they decided to come to their aid.

The moment before Adwe was about to devour Etiya and silence her song, the Jagasti came down from their Realms and fell upon the gigantic serpent. Wielding weapons of sunfire and lightning, sky-iron and storm wind, they slew Adwe and cut his body into a myriad of pieces. Then they took those pieces and flung them high above Abengoni, where they became the Moon Stars, luminous clusters of light that would shine far brighter than any other star in the night sky.

When they were done with Adwe, the Jagasti released Etiya and her people from their imprisonment, and showed them how they could best reclaim the world the serpent had stolen from them. The Jagasti remained among the people for a time, until they longed for their own Realms and returned there.

Etiya continued to sing for the rest of her life. Her people took the name “Matile” – the “restored ones.” And the Matile made the Jagasti their gods and goddesses, and continued to sing to them long after Etiya’s life ended.

Kyroun then saw the time after the demise of Adwe, when the Matile were simple farmers and herders who had only recently ended ages of wandering, hunting teeming hordes of wildlife and gathering abundant fruits across the northern rim of Abengoni.

During that ancient time, the Matile’s claim to the land had been fiercely disputed by beings of human shape but inhuman nature – brutal, man-eating ogres called Zimwe and the enigmatic Tokoloshe, who were not then allied with humankind.

The fierce battles among the foes soaked the land with blood. No race could hold sway for long; their advantages – the size and ferocity of the Zimwe, the sorcerous talents of the Tokoloshe, the sheer numbers and dogged determination of the Matile – always offset each other and led to more conflict and bloodshed.

It was the discovery of a different kind of magic that eventually allowed the Matile to prevail over their foes: ashuma, a direct link to the power of the Jagasti, who had remained apart in their Realms beyond the boundaries of the mortals’ world since they had rescued the people of Abengoni from Adwe.

Kyroun saw the face of the first Matile to wield ashuma, and heard his name: Jaussa, an ocher-daubed, befeathered shaman who stared in fear and wonder at the eldritch energy that glowed brightly in his outstretched hands, consuming them even as he watched.

When later Matile shamans learned to harness that awesome power, they used it to drive the Zimwe into a wasteland far to the east. The Tokoloshe, realizing that their own sorcery was no match for ashuma, wisely made an alliance with the Matile and retreated to their underground domains. The great animal herds grudgingly retreated from plains that became farmland, and orchards replaced vast forests.

Freed from the constant struggle to survive, the Matile learned to build in stone rather than straw; to record their thoughts in written symbols; to fully explore the power of the gift for which Jaussa had paid with his hands; to walk with the Jagasti, who had decided that the Matile were once again worthy of their company, long after they had first heard Etiya’s song ... Akpema of the sun, Nama-kwah of the sea, Alamak of the stars, Ufashwe of the wind, Halasha of iron, and many others ....

Kyroun saw magnificent cities begin to rise throughout the north of Abengoni, glittering like stars in a midnight sky. Their names whispered in his mind: Khambawe, Tesseni, Aglada, Jimmar, Ibela and dozens more. Each of those cities was the capital of its own kingdom. With the menace of the Zimwe and competition from the Tokoloshe gone, the Matile kingdoms ultimately became bitter rivals, incessantly warring against each other, conquering, overthrowing, re-conquering and overthrowing again.

First Khambawe would hold sway over the others, then Tesseni, then Aglada, then Jimmar, then Khambawe again in a never-ending cycle of battle and bloodshed. Finally Dardar Issuri, warrior-king of Khambawe, was able to conquer the other city-states one by one, finally melding the whole of the north into a vast empire and siring the dynasty that continued to rule until this day.

Kyroun saw Gebrem and Tiyana’s image of Issuri in his mind: a huge, dark lion of a man, braided hair flying as he mowed his enemies down in battle after battle. Legends whispered that Issuri was the son of Akpema, God of the Sun, and the ashuma of the Jagasti had flowed in his veins along with his blood.

The newly-united Matile kingdoms became the mightiest empire Abengoni had ever known. At the Matile Mala Empire’s pinnacle, the people of Khambawe and the other cities had lived lives of unimaginable luxury. Their land was fertile and rich in precious metals and stones, which they crafted into exquisite jewelry and art objects. Their armies, aided by the power of ashuma, were invincible. Only distance limited the reach of their conquests.

Those acquisitions began in the south, where a hilly landscape marched ever upward, finally forming an escarpment of mountains that marked the division between the north and south of Abengoni. This vast hill country was called Thaba, as were the large, brawny people who dwelt there. The Thaba people were scattered tribes of farmers and nomadic herders who had long ago shunned the changing ways of their lowland neighbors, and had since been left to themselves – until the ambition of Issuri’s heirs sent mighty armies into the hills to place the contentious tribes firmly under the new Empire’s heel.

The Matile built no cities in the Thaba country. But the people there chafed under the rule of the northerners, who enslaved them and carried them off at will, unwittingly emulating the depredations of the serpent Adwe. In their own land, Thaba slaves worked the rich reefs of diamonds and gold that honeycombed their hills. Others groaned under the Matile lash on the farms of the lowlands and performed the tasks at which the shamashas would later toil in the cities.

Stubbornly, the Thabas resisted Matile rule, and their warriors sometimes managed isolated victories over Empire troops. But the magic of their inyangas – diviners – proved no match for the might of ashuma, and the Thaba rebellions inevitably ended in defeat, with the Matile inflicting increasingly cruel reprisals. Resentment grew like a rancorous tumor in the Thaba hills, but the Matile were blind in their arrogance, and did not deign to notice the hatred. Besides, the Matile had long since shifted their hunger for hegemony to other places.

A parched desert covered much of the territory to the south and west of the Thaba country. This sun-blasted landscape was called the Khumba Khourou, or Great Thirstland. The Khumba Khourou was inhabited by the Kwa’manga, a small-statured, golden-brown people who had long ago learned the secrets of survival in an arid land.

Relations between the Matile and the Kwa’manga were peaceful, though the Matile considered themselves superior to the smaller people despite the fact that the Kwa’manga were born magic-users. However, the desert-dwellers employed their talents only to help them survive their chosen environment and to defend themselves. The Empire left the Kwa’manga alone; there was no glory to be gained in dominating a desert.

Almost by accident, the Matile had discovered new territory when a storm blew a fishing boat off course, pushing it to the vicinity of a chain of large islands located just beyond the horizon of the seacoast. The fishermen found no humans on the islands, only giant birds, huge-eyed, monkey-like creatures, and semi-animate plant life. After the fishermen made their way home and told their tale other, more adventurous, Matile colonized the islands.

They called their new home the Uloas – the god-gifts. Although they maintained close ties of trade and kinship with the mainland, subsequent generations of Uloans gradually developed their own, separate way of life.

As their power grew, Matile from both the mainland and the Uloas explored the rest of their huge island-continent, sending out flotillas of ships filled with soldiers and trade goods, as well as overland expeditions.

South of the Khumba Khourou, Matile explorers found an extensive savanna called the Mbali-pana. Mostly flat grassland, the savanna also featured scattered groves of trees as well as circular depressions that were once the craters of volcanoes, and deep gorges cut by ancient rivers that had long since run dry.

On the Mbali-pana, immense herds of animals – many of which did not exist elsewhere on the continent – roamed freely, sharing abundant pasturage with cattle-herding nomads and hunters. Collectively, the savanna tribes called themselves the Ole-kisongo – the People of the Spear.

Although their warriors were ferocious in battle, the Ole-kisongo were not the true guardians of the Mbali-pana. Soon enough, the Matile explorers had learned of the Wakyambi, an Elven race with a magical affinity for their land. Like the Elven of the Fidi lands, the Wakyambi were far more long-lived than humans. Their darker color and long, tufted tails distinguished them from their kin in other parts of the world.

The Wakyambi greeted the Matile explorers peacefully, and took them to their home – a single, anomalous mountain peak called Kiti ya Ngai, or Seat of the Gods. Because of the flatness of the rest of the land, Kiti ya Ngai was visible for scores of miles.

There, the Wakyambi demonstrated their extraordinary power to control the beasts of the wild. In times of need, the Wakyambi could assemble a mighty animal army, which, along with the loyal Ole-kisongo, was more than capable of dealing with any threat to the Mbali-pana. Although they were confident that their ashuma was a match for the Wakyambis’ animal sorcery, the Matile saw nothing in the endless savanna that was worth the sacrifices such a conflict would surely bring. They also found that despite the opulence of their empire, they possessed nothing either the Wakyambi or the Ole-Kisongo wanted or needed.

Wiser if not wealthier, the Matile explorers returned to their ships and sailed farther southward, watching the coastline slowly transform from savanna to an enormous belt of rain forest that stretched across the waist of the continent. The region was called the Mashambani-m’ti, or Land of Endless Trees.

The explorers found that foliage grew so thick and close to the shoreline that harbors to the Mashambani-m’ti were virtually nonexistent. But several rivers flowed from the rain forest into the ocean, and the Matile proceeded to sail their ships up the greatest of those streams, called the Luango.

Along the banks of the Luango, the explorers encountered a wide variety of cultures, ranging from the simple hunting-and-gathering lifestyle of the Kidogo pygmies to the sophisticated riverine kingdoms of Mukondo, Usisi, Bashoga, and Nyayembe, among others. The other rain-forest inhabitants were taller than the Kidogo, but still below-average compared to the Matile and the Thabas. Their skin was of sable to ebony hue, and collectively they were known as the Bashombe people.

The many rivers and tributaries that wound among the ranks of trees provided the main avenues for transportation and communication in the Mashambani-m’ti. Stone was rare in this region, so wood and thatch constituted the primary building materials. And Bashombe weavers and woodworkers achieved a degree of artistry stonemasons in other lands would envy.

The Matile explorers were received warmly by the river kingdoms, each seeking its own advantage from the contact. Demonstrations of the power of ashuma awed the Bashombe sorcerers, called ngangas, and the explorers were treated almost as gods.

Bashombe dignitaries accompanied the explorers when they set sail homeward, to see for themselves the wonders of the Matile Empire. Trading posts were soon established near the mouth of the Luango. The trading posts became colonies, and Matile influence spread throughout the Mashambani-m’ti.

When asked what lay to the south of their land, the Bashombe said there was only the Jhagga, an uninhabited, noxious swampland. Their curiosity aroused, the Matile sent another expedition southward to see what, if anything, lay beyond the Jhagga.

The Jhagga turned out to be worse than the Bashombe had ever imagined – a foul place, teeming with nightmarish creatures. South of the swampland, however, the explorers found more hospitable territory – a rocky, semi-arid steppe interspersed with stands of forest and patches of grassland. It was truly land’s end, the southernmost tip of Abengoni. Its inhabitants called it the Kashai.

The people of the Kashai grew to unusual height – well over seven feet in many cases. Their physiques were slender rather than bulky, and they were very dark-skinned. These elongated people, known as the Ikuya, lived in settlements varying in size from villages to small cities. Some of the Ikuya choose to follow a nomadic way of life, grazing their herds on the modest plains.

The Ikuya generally lived in peace with each other, but they were perpetually at war with the irimu, remnants of a shape-shifting race that had inhabited much of Abengoni before the arrival of humans. Although the irimu possessed the power to transform into lions and leopards, and hyenas, the ancient humans were able to wrest the land from them and drive them into remote areas. Scattered remnants of irimu survived as far north as the Thaba hills and even the Matile Mala, but the Kashai was their home and last stronghold.

From there, the shape-changers had mounted reprisal raids on the Ikuya. When the Matile landed in the Kashai, they were greeted with great alarm and consternation from the Ikuya, who had become so isolated they believed they were the only humans in the world. They thought the Matile were irimu who had developed a new guise that mimicked humanity, and the Matile could do nothing to disabuse them of that delusional belief.

The Ikuya attacked in force, and the explorers were lucky to escape with their lives. Later, in their intransigent arrogance, the Matile returned in force and built a fortress-city called Buhari at edge of the sea, and they defended it at all costs from the Ikuya, who were as determined to destroy it as they were the irimu.

Sailing around the bottom of the continent, other explorers headed north, reaching the eastern side of the Mashambani-m’ti, where they received a warm welcome from the local Bashombe, who had heard of them long before they had arrived.

Further northward, the explorers found an escarpment that formed a great plateau called the Gundagumu, a beautiful land of meadows, lakes, rivers, valleys, forest, and rolling hills. This fruitful territory supported a number of kingdoms and city-states that were constantly at war with each other over land and resources. Prominent kingdoms included Chiminuhwa, Vengaye, Mbiri, Inyangana, and Kadishwene. They all welcomed contact with the Matile.

The Matile learned that the dwellers of the Gundugumu were called the Changami. In appearance, the Changami were an odd amalgam, combining the large stature of the Thabas, the features of the Matile, and the golden-brown skin coloring of the Kwa’manga.

In the Changami, with their warring kingdoms and rapidly developing civilization, the Matile were reminded of themselves as they had been before Dardar Issuri had unified their region. Were the kingdoms of the Gundugumu to become similarly united, they could one day pose a threat to the Matile Mala Empire.

The Degen Jassi of the time contemplated a war of conquest, but dismissed the idea. With the aid of ashuma, the Matile would have won such a war in the end. But the cost of maintaining direct dominance over the Gundugumu would have offset the benefits of the victory.

Instead, the Matile chose a subtler method of control. They encouraged the rivalries among the Changami kingdoms, playing one side against the other to ensure that they would never coalesce into an empire. The strategy proved successful; the kingdoms’ strife intensified even as the Matile influence grew stronger.

This was the Matile Mala Empire at its peak. With the exceptions of the Mbali-pana plains, and the desert to the south, Matile control had spread throughout Abengoni. And Matile ships plied the seas of the rest of the world, establishing trade that further enriched the Empire. Not only did they sail west to the lands of the Fidi; they also ventured to the east, where they discovered Itsekiri, a sister continent of dark-skinned people; a land of deserts dotted with oases and pierced by mountains. The people of Itsekiri were not seafarers, but they welcomed trade and other contact with the Matile.

As time passed, however, the Matiles’ golden age began to show inevitable signs of tarnish. And it was the Uloans who lit the spark that eventually set a mighty Empire ablaze.

The rulers of the islands grew restless within the Empire, and their discontent provided fertile ground for the intrigues of one of the Jagasti – Legaba, God of the Underworld. Long-shunned by worshippers of the other Jagasti, and even by those gods and goddesses themselves, Legaba took full advantage of the islanders’ resentment of rule from afar.

Kyroun saw Legaba as a shadow whispering into the ear of an island Jass who sat on a throne flanked by plants that moved in the absence of wind ....

Encouraged by Legaba and his minions from the underground, the Uloans proclaimed their independence from the Matile Empire. The Emperor of the time, Dardar Tesfaru, could not allow such secession to stand. If the islands succeeded in breaking away from the Empire, what would prevent other regions from doing the same?

Thus began the Storm Wars, a conflict that intensified from one generation to the next. The Uloan sorcerers’ ashuma matched that of the mainlanders, and huge battles unleashed awesome destruction on land and sea. The Jagasti themselves joined the fray, seeking to destroy the outcast Legaba, whose very existence had become an affront to them.

In the final, apocalyptic battle, the sorcerers’ ashuma careened out of their control, and even the control of the Jagasti. On the mainland, entire cities were incinerated in blazes of eldritch fire. And the Uloan islands were ravaged, nearly half their land-mass swallowed by the sea.

Yet for all the destruction the war wrought on the lands of the Matile and Uloans alike, it was the sea that suffered the worst cataclysm. There, the runaway ashuma had thrust the elements of wind and water into an eternal war of their own, a conflict that created incessant storms off the northern rim of Abengoni. Those storms effectively isolated the sea-bound continent from the rest of the world.

The major battles between the Matile and the Uloans ended then; not through any definitive victory or defeat for either side, but because both were too devastated to fight any longer. Their civilization lay in ruins, and the number of dead was beyond counting. Yet the enmity between the rivals remained even as they set about the grim task of salvaging of lands from which even the Jagasti had retreated.

However, the misfortune of the Matile was not yet done. In the aftermath of the Storm Wars, the enslaved Thabas threw off their yokes and rose up against their weakened masters. Their blood-soaked, vengeful revolt came close to wiping out the Matile who had managed to survive the wars.

The Thabas who lived in the cities returned to their ancestral hills, where they joined their long-lost tribesmen in the eradication of all Matile outposts in their country. Especially vicious was the revolt in the mines, which were destroyed with the former overlords trapped inside. The Thabas despised diamonds and gold, and the mines they once worked were sealed and cursed by the newly empowered inyangas.

Over the ensuing years, the Thabas raided what was left of Matile Mala with impunity, taking cattle and women as they please. They also hunted the game animals that roamed through the rubble of deserted Matile cities. The old days of Matile domination became a bitter memory to the Thabas, and their frequent raids and skirmishes were a way of obliterating that memory in blood.

Much of the landscape of the former Matile Empire had been permanently altered by the rampant ashuma. As time passed, the lands to the east became known as the Nangi Kihunu – the Monstrous Land. Herds of beasts – some altered by the effects of uncontrolled ashuma – reclaimed the wasteland, as did the Zimwe and such fearsome offshoots as the izingogo, humanoid quadrupeds that hunted in packs and hated all other living beings; the igikoko, eaters of carrion and corpses; and the makishi, malevolent giants that dwelt in the most remote, desolate areas of the Nangi Kihunu.

The decline of the Matile Empire affected the rest of Abengoni as well. The Matile colonies in the Mashambani-m’ti were abandoned; their people either made their way back to their beleaguered homeland or stayed behind to be dominated and absorbed by the more vigorous Bashombe kingdoms. In the Gundugumu lands, Matile embassies and trading posts were abandoned. And in the Kashai, the Ikuya finally razed Buhari and scattered its inhabitants.

Throughout the continent, the once-great Empire was shunned, and the very name Matile became a murmur of myth. And in the sister-continent to the east, Itsekiri, it became even less than that.

Penned into the northwestern horn of Abengoni, the Matile remnant managed to survive. They rebuilt what they could, and reclaimed a small measure of the ashuma they once commanded. The Jagasti did not abandon them completely, but their involvement had diminished. And the Matile were constantly beset by the Uloans’ ceaseless quest for revenge. And to the south, a mighty Thaba nkosi, or chieftain, named Tshakane was uniting scattered clans and tribes, forging them into a spear aimed at the remaining Matile lands ....