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Jass Imbiah held the message tube in her slender hands. She sat on an ivory throne in her palace of pink coral. The ivory from which the throne was carved had been brought over from the Mainland in ancient days; no Uloan had seen an elephant since the days before the Storm Wars, when travel and trade between the Mainland and the islands had been frequent.
Although Jass Imbiah had lived for a long time, her true age was impossible to guess from her appearance. Her body was swathed in a voluminous chamma of red and green stripes, and a cap of silver decorated with a carved spiderweb covered her head; only her face and hands could be seen. Her fingernails jutted like talons. And every visible inch of her umber skin was covered with small scars cut in the shape of spiders, making the usual indications of age difficult to discern.
Six heavily muscled guards flanked Jass Imbiah’s throne, three to each side. Their hands rested on the hilts of huge, curved swords that could lop off a man’s head at a single stroke. Thick, v-shaped incisions marked their chests, and rows of spider-scars lined their arms. Thin lines resembling whiskers were cut into their cheeks. They wore headgear of dry yellow grass that simulated the mane of a lion – a beast that, like the elephant, no Uloan had seen in centuries. Yet those animals of the Mainland continued to serve as powerful symbols in the Islanders’ memories, and a connection to ancestors far away in time.
Also present were huangi, the priests and priestesses who wielded the dark ashuma of Legaba. They were clad in costumes made from the radiant plumage of birds that lived nowhere other than on the Uloas. For all the brightness of their garments, the expressions on the faces of the huangi were forbidding in their severity. Like Jass Imbiah, their bodies were covered with spider-scars.
Bujiji was on his knees before Jass Imbiah’s throne. His gaze followed hers as she looked at the barb-marks on the tube. Beads of sweat slid down the scars on Bujiji’s face. Now, he was beginning to regret the extra time he had spent with Awiwi, despite the pleasure that dalliance had given him.
“You bring I this tube with the mark of the ubia on it,” she said. “What these marks mean?”
“Them mean I and I almost not catch the tube in time,” Bujiji answered truthfully, with not even a thought of prevaricating. “But I still catched it before the ubia can. The message inside not harmed.”
That was all he could say in his own defense. Now, he could only wait for Jass Imbiah to proclaim his punishment.
But Jass Imbiah said nothing about punishment. Instead, she slid one long fingernail down the side of the tube. Her nail left only a slight scratch on the wood. Yet the tube split open like a dry reed.
She pulled Sehaye’s message out, unrolled it and read it. First, her eyes widened. Then, they narrowed. Then, her brow furrowed in a scowl, and the corners of her mouth turned downward.
“Them mainland blankskin find they a new ally,” she murmured, more to herself than to Bujiji or the guards. “An ally who come from far, far away.”
She paused and reread the message. When she spoke again, she still seemed to be thinking aloud.
“I and I must ...”
Jass Imbiah’s body stiffened as she broke off in mid-sentence. Abruptly, she shot up from her throne, her feet lifting from the ground before she caught her balance and began to pace the floor in front of her throne. Her movements were stiff and disjointed, as though she was no longer in control of her limbs. Her eyes rolled up, showing only bloodshot white crescents.
The others in the chamber looked on wide-eyed, for they knew that Legaba was now riding – possessing – Jass Imbiah. And they trembled inside, for even though Legaba was their one god, he was could be vengeful, spiteful – and unpredictable.
With a sudden twist of her limbs that seemed to wrench her body in several directions at once, Jass Imbiah tore off her chamma. Her naked form was lean, cadaverous, androgynous, ageless. Spider-scars covered her from head to foot. And on her skin, the spiders were moving ...
When Jass Imbiah spoke again, Bujiji and the guards covered their ears and collapsed to the floor in awe and agony, even as they realized that Legaba was riding Imbiah, who was his Vessel. Her voice was no longer that of a woman, or even a human being. It was Legaba’s voice: a voice that roared mightily through the palace and into the streets of Ompong, and from there across the whole of Jayaya and to all the Shattered Isles.
RETRIBUTION TIME! the Uloans’ god cried again and again through the fraying vocal cords of his Vessel.
RETRIBUTION TIME! RETRIBUTION TIME! RETRIBUTION TIME!
Throughout the islands, the Uloans heard the revelatory message of their god. Some people shouted in ecstasy and repeated the cry of the revenge that they and their ancestors had long hoped would “soon come.” Others wept in trepidation. All knew that the destiny for which they had waited so long had finally arrived. All knew that their lives had changed from this day; and that the lives of some would be lost when the Uloans gained their revenge for the evil the Mainlanders had done to what were once the Happy Isles.