Vilageidiotx

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Early September: Gota de Guerra, La Mancha, Spain
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A person used to activity, to moving forward with their life and its purpose, begins to fray from the pressure of pent up anxiety and angst when they are stuck doing nothing for too long. Taytu had this problem, and she knew why. But what she wasn't sure about was the truth of the anxiety she sensed in the country surrounding her. Spain seemed anxious and seething with angst. But was that her projecting her feelings onto an innocent people? This question for a normal person would be trivia. But for Taytu, who latched her identity on her ability to read a society, this uncertainty nibbled at her soul.

She had other reasons to doubt herself. For most of the time she'd lived in America, she'd envied it. Its polish, its strength, its unmatched modernity. But Las Vegas changed that. She now pitied America, and feared it. She hadn't read it correctly until it tried to kill her. Spain was just alien. How poorly might she misread it? What might be the consequences?

Who was she now?

She simmered in these feelings, on top of a hill, in a modest mansion surrounded by vineyards. The property was owned by Spain's new Viceroy, the perilous Delgado, but he never visited it. Taytu took it he owned the property for its produce and not for the quaint white estate perched overlooking it all.

La Mancha reminded her of the American Great Plains. It was a vast stretch of uninspiring nothing, broken up by fields and villages. It was a place where it was hard to imagine lives being lived. Taytu hadn't spoken much with the people who called this land home, but she imagined their lives taking on more the quality of rotting than anything she called life. She lived on wine, cheese, and worry. Noh lived there too, but he'd befriended the caretaker, and the two of them went partridge hunting several times a week.

So was that national anxiety real? She read ominous signs in little things. More military aircraft flew over the plains than commercial. There was activity for them in Morocco. She read the newspapers. There were always lines between the lines, unspoken truths, obvious in the things left unsaid. In the few people she did meet, mostly just servants and those working on the estate, they left more things unsaid than the papers could.

It took her longer to heal than she'd wanted. The gunshot itself hadn't been so bad, but the infection was hard to shake. Even now, two months later, the flesh on her side was tender, and the scarified tissue unseemly. But it was not dangerous any more. She could have left. Should have left. And would have, if her homeland hadn't erupted in a war of its own.

The unease sometimes came up in conversation. You could tell it was there where so many words caused tension.

"It was this time of year forty six years ago that the Great War began." the old ponderous voice of Dejazmach Wendem Cherkos said like a warning from beyond the grave. Wendem was Ethiopia's Ambassador to Spain, who came to check on Taytu often enough to be her caretaker. It'd been him that brought Benyam Felege's suggestion she stay in Spain until circumstances become easier to understand.

"Forty six years is a meaningless number." Taytu said, "And that war started in August. It is September." She said these words, but any rationality in them fell dead, victim to the feeling of the times.

"Maybe the omens that worry me are not in the years. Instability and war is normal now. Nothing feels permanent anymore."

"Nothing is permanent." Taytu grumbled.

"What things are often means less than what things feel like. Sometimes stability is a self fulfilling prophecy. So is instability."

She could not answer that. "What am I here for?" she asked bluntly.

"Not to be home and in danger." Wendem said.

Taytu perched on her chair like she was ready for action, to jump up at any moment and fight, or argue, with the first person to come through the door. Wendem didn't reflect her stance in any way. In his old age he gladly surrendered support of his body to the leather sofa. An existential discomfort seemed to possess Taytu's muscles. She sighed and recrossed her legs. "I have to do something."

"I have been discussing the possibility of Spanish support for the crown in the war. They aren't interested. Understandable. I don't know that you can help, but that is the only diplomatic goal we are pursuing right now."

"Would it be better if I relocated to Madrid?" Taytu asked.

"I don't think so. You were placed out here for a reason. The political atmosphere in this country is still very tense. You would be endangering yourself."

"I can't do anything in the middle of nowhere." Taytu pouted. They were quiet for a stretch, listening to the house settle, the clocks tick. The restlessness in Taytu's soul welled up so that it needed an outlet of some kind. She reached to pour herself a glass of wine though she was not thirsty.

"You could speak to members of the Cortes. You still have the honor of being royalty, in a country that respects that honor. Deputies of the Cortes would be pleased to make your acquaintance."

Taytu stood and thought for a moment, wine glass in her hand. "Schedule a meeting. Here, I suppose."

"That would be best."

"Are you making progress in any of your goals? Arms, whatever?"

"I am afraid not."

"Well." Taytu looked out the window, sunlight making the dry hills glow. "I'll see what I can do."

"Good." Wendem did his best to smile, his face-muscles lifting his jowls in much the same way a child picks up a heavy sack of grain. Then his eyes lit up. "One more thing!" he pulled a bundle of papers from his robe and put them on the table. "Newspapers from home. The latest."

Taytu looked at them. "Thank you." she said, expressionless.

--

In La Mancha you can see all around for miles. There are no trees, and few hills to block the horizon. The sky is as blue as blue, and the plains golden.

Taytu stood in the shade of the eves and looked out over the white plaster walls, across the vineyard, toward the small village in the valley. From this place, you couldn't tell Spain was undergoing political crisis. What could a crisis be in such a landscape? A busted cart? There were people who dreamed of living in a place like this. Taytu wasn't one of them. What she saw was perfectly pointless desolation. She'd come out to feel the sun on her skin, one of the few joys in this pastoral wilderness.

Noh arrived, riding on horseback, accompanied by Francisco, the caretaker, an old man who wore a straw hat to protect his bald head. Birds hung from their saddles like grape clusters. Three slim dogs kept pace.

Noh dismounted quickly. Francisco took a moment. He looked up at Taytu. "Señora." he greeted respectfully, untying his birds.

Taytu smiled coldly and said nothing.

"I will take these and clean them." Francisco said, taking Noh's birds with big rough hands.

"Thanks Pancho." Noh replied. The old man went around the house in the direction of the out-building he called home.

"We saw three bombers heading south." Noh told her. He approached, shotgun slung over his shoulder, looking as if he'd almost gone native.

"Changing bases." Taytu said.

"I've never seen one before we came here." Noh was next to her in front of the door now. "They don't sound like other planes. They are like big eagles, there is something ominous about them."

"It's the bombs. You know they are there."

"They are darker though. And their hum is lower."

"I haven't notice." Taytu was not looking at him. He stared at her a moment, and went inside. She looked out, over the fields, watching the workers at their vines. She went inside soon afterwards.

Noh had picked up one of the newspapers from the tousled pile she'd left.

"What is this one?"

She peered over his arm. "I asked for that one specially. It's the Anglo-Abyssinian. Printed in New York."

"Why would you want it?" he said. He read over it, and she could see the subtle hints of distress playing on his face.

"They like the Begmeder rebels."

He held it up. It showed a picture of her brother, crowned, standing near a white woman. "Is this true?" he pointed to the headline. Emperor's Foreign Girl."

"Undoubtedly." she scoffed.

He held it in his hand, staring.

"You knew he was like that. You've heard the stories."

"I have heard rumors, but I did not hold stock in them. It is not important, maybe. It is the modern world."

"You make it sound like he has chosen a good wife." she said. Her heart was beating faster now. She felt like a hunting dog, having caught the scent for the first time in a long time, was hot on the trail like it was the only thing in the world. "That is his whore. My brother's whore. That is who he is."

"I don't know..."

"I know! I lived with him! He was like a monkey, running wild! There was no controlling him! I have cultivated myself, but what has he done?"

"He is the country."

"Then God help us all!"

There was a pause. The profound rural silence filled the void. She was angry, but her anger was an ecstasy of a kind too. A real feeling. Something she could grab onto in the desolation she was stuck in.

He broke the pause. "You make it sound like there is no hope. Like this war is over."

Did she make it sound like that? Instead of answering, she smouldered. Was it over? That didn't seem right. In the mind of her countrymen, Sahle was the Emperor. He was the nation in a sense. In her mind, he was her brother. Did she not understand her own country? She understood the power of the monarchy. She understood it more than Sahle. But she didn't feel it. Did that matter?

"I can..." she was going to complete that sentence with do my part, but her mouth dried up, and she didn't feel like finishing the words.

The pause. The silence.

She didn't like him anymore. Noh seemed like a golem, a being without its own soul. Had she ever liked him, or had he just been there? In America, he had been her golem. Now he was just another of her brother's.
It was just her. It had always been just her.

--

A day passed. Nothing happened but existence. The expanse surrounding them on all sides seemed to grow.

A car puttered down the dusty road. It was an overly polished thing, slick lines and ostentatious ornaments, a sort of modern aristocratic coach. The man who stepped out of the back had the body of a military man gone old. Strong jawed and muscular, but in a way that harshly defined wiry muscles and the features of his skull. He was grey haired, clean shaven, and wore the tight suit of a Spanish gentleman, along with a tilted sombrero cordobés. As far as politicians went, he was quite attractive, but he was a attractive in the sense a magazine model is attractive. She didn't intend to do anything but look.

"Good morning, your majesty." he greeted her, smiling.

"Deputy Conde." she held out her hand. He kissed it. They went inside.

There was cheese, wine, and ham. Both of them had wine.

"This is your place?" he asked, looking around.

"Viceroy Delgado's" she replied. He said nothing, and inspecting the room as if he had not heard her. "Sit down, Señor" she offered.

"After you." he insisted, motioning toward a richly upholstered arm chair. She obliged and sat down. He sat across from her.

"What do I owe this invitation?" he asked sweetly.

She sipped. "I wanted to get in contact with the important people in this part of the country. The Embassy put your name at the top."

"Well, I don't pretend to such importance, but we all have roles to play."

"Yours is an elected official? That is very interesting to me. In Ethiopia, we do not have elected officials. Is it like in America?"

"We do not rule the country, we only advise his majesty." Conde was looking uncomfortable. That annoyed Taytu. Wasn't it already trouble enough that her homeland was embroiled? Did she have to balance the trouble of this place too?

"That is admirable." Taytu replied, "Do not think I am a Republican. I mean, what would I be in a Republic? I am a stranger in a strange land. I only want to understand what I am talking about."

Conde looked more and more out of place. "What can I clear up?" he asked.

She sipped. "You are an advisor by trade? Well, I could use advice. You know my country has broken down into civil war? You have heard this?"

He nodded.

"Yes." she said solemnly, "That puts me in a strange position. I am a servant to my country. What can I do for it when I am so far away? I wish to serve my country."

Conde relaxed some, and took a sip. His jaw, which had looked painfully welded to his face, seemed to loosen. "You want to ask for help, your majesty? In your war?"

"That would be a service." Taytu replied. She'd underestimated him. She always underestimated the ones she found attractive. Old fat men had to be wily. The attractive ones only needed to look strong and let the rest fall into place. "Your country has some of the crusader spirit now, under Delgado..."

Conde raised a hand. "I am not in a place to raise a crusader standard. Do you think there is a place for an advisor like that? There is one advisor in this country. Just the one man. If I stick up my head for something so irrelevant, do I not look like competition? Or maybe another party? I am not an ambitious man. Let me sit in my office and drink wine. Delgado and his friends can have the government."

"I expected more spirit." she said blandly.

"Well, it is not there." Conde replied. "I am honored to have met you, your majesty, but if you are looking for friends in the government, I am afraid I cannot be useful to you."

There was that profound silence. Rural oblivion.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Early September, Beijing
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Yaqob woke up in a start, some sixth sense ringing in his sleep-addled brain like an alarm bell. He was cold, his skin goose pimpled, the sheets twisted around his naked figure.

Something banged against his bookshelf. He looked up. Shun, the maid, was standing there. She was looking, not at him, but in his general direction, like a shy child avoiding eye contact. She...

He pulled the sheet around himself. Several impressions muddled together. Offense. Shame. A twisting contrast of discomfort and humor on how this seemed like a situation more for Sahle than him.

"I am sorry." she bowed, blushing, looking away.

"It's fine." he said. She went back to dusting. He watched her for a second, her thick cotton dress falling around her hips. He hadn't... well, what what Sahle do in this situation? Thinking about made him more uncomfortable. Too uncomfortable.

"I need to get dressed." he said matter of factly. Was he losing his voice?

"Oh yes." she turned, looked him in the eyes,and bowed. "I am sorry. Sorry."

"It's fine." he said.

"You are a nice man." She said. An awkward silence hung between them. She bowed again, and retreated.

He untwisted from the sheets and sat there for a second. It wasn't cold anymore. He stood up, unfurling from the bed. The room was a messier than he wanted. There were books on the shelf, on his drawers, on his desk. Several sheafs of paper, some written on, lay scattered on multiple surfaces. He grabbed a stack, pretending to find a place for them, reading what he had written. Half-reading. He couldn't help but be distracted.

When he was ready and dressed, he went outside, knowing he would find Akale there.

Akale was there, drinking his coffee, standing bemused in front of a Chinese official. Yaqob thought the official younger than himself. Almost a child, dressed in a crisp new mandarin suit. He stood up straight, but his eyes were distant, uncertain.

"I am Mao Yong, the neighborhood pioneer." he introduced himself with a bow. Akale returned the bow, a friendly smirk on his face. It looked funny, the two tall Ethiopians, Akale in his embroidered robes and Yaqob in his mandarin suit, being addressed by a young man half their height.

The pioneer paused for a moment, not looking sure of himself, but he regained his composure. "I will observe this neighborhood, make sure the laws are upheld. You know the laws? They are posted in the party hall." he pointed down the hill, through the trees, at a building hidden well out of sight. "There will be no gambling, or usurious loans, or opening shops without permission of the party. Do not solicit prostitutes, or be party to arranged marriages..."

"We will be down to review the law when we have time." Akale said politely.

Yong smiled and loosened up all at once. "Yes, very good." he bowed, "I bid you a good day, sirs."

"You are doing good work." Yaqob replied. The boy beamed, and scuttled off the porch and toward the front gate. Akale stepped closer to the Prince.

"That is the beginning of a career, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Yaqob asked sincerely.

"Well, there must be a reason for it, besides his mother told him to do it. Who knows, perhaps he will be Chairman of the Communist Party someday."

"Chairman Mao."

"Yes." Akale said, chuckling. "Well, it does sound silly. But the names of these people usually sound silly. Chairman Hou does rhyme, doesn't it?"

Yaqob hadn't thought either sounded silly.

"Would you have breakfast with me?" Akale asked.

Yaqob smiled and sat down. It was a cool day, a breeze singing through the trees. The porch smelled of coffee, weakly mingled with the sweet smell of the garden.

"Is there news from home?" Yaqob asked.

"The war hasn't started yet. There's been some fighting, some deaths, but no battles. Hamere Noh Dagna has abandoned Mogadishu, but pretends it is because he has to protect Djibouti from pirates. Everybody knows that he doesn't like your brother."

"But nothing has been decided yet?"

An Ethiopian servant brought a tray of eggs and rice. Both men ate from it.

"Nothing has been decided." Akale confirmed. "But the thing is young. The Chinese haven't asked me about it yet. To them it's just a foreign thing, a crisis maybe. Of course, a war is only a crisis until enough people have got around to dying. Then it becomes a war."

Deng Zhong-shan arrived, walking onto the porch like a familiar neighbor. Yaqob hadn't expected him, but he wasn't surprised. The Chinese congressman was showing up a lot lately.

"Your majesty." he bowed, "I did not expect you out of bed so early."

"I don't believe it's that early, congressman." Yaqob said. He did not blink, or show any feeling.

"Well, it is a good morning to sleep in. Now, I hate to be a burden, but where is the toilet?"

"A servant will help you." Akale said.

"No, I can find it myself, if you would be so kind."

Akale gave him directions. Zhong-shan bowed and went inside.

Yaqob turned to Akale. "I did not know the congressman was coming." he said blandly.

Akale nodded. "Well, he and his friends are very interested in Ethiopia. He's interested in mining, maybe opening a few operations."

"How would that work? A communist peoples owning property in a state such as ours?"

Akale shrugged. "I don't know much about Marxist economic theory."

"Have you read the book I loaned you?"

"I haven't had time. I don't know that Marxist economic theory is important to what I do. If it is, the Chinese government will help me with he work."

"I feel like it is important, so that you don't mislead these people."

Akale started to speak, but the reappearance of a smiling Deng Zhong-shan took their attention. "Mind if..." he motioned to a seat. Yaqob, out of instinct, gave him a slight nod, and watched the squat older man lower himself methodically into his chair.

"I forwarded your papers to Addis Ababa." Akale said, looking over at the old man. "I am hoping to get a reply, though under the circumstances..."

"May I be the first of my countrymen to offer my sympathies. War is a bitter thing, but a civil war is especially bitter." Zhong-shan said, putting sorrow in his voice, though Yaqob took it as a meaningless nicety. It wasn't even a true nicety. Hou had personally sent a much more heart-felt sympathy letter to Yaqob. Zhong-shan was merely the first of his people to offer his sympathies in person.

"We are both a people suffering the plight of war." Akale said.

Yaqob lost interest. He watched the birds flitting in the trees. Akale and Zhong-Shan became a background noise, a hum to the tune of the bird's wings. The sun was at its apex when the Chinese congressman said farewell. Yaqob made polite gestures but said nothing.

"I will see you at the People's Hall tonight." Zhong-shan said in between bows. Yaqob smiled warmly, but he didn't know what that meant. The People's Hall? He waited until the Congressman was gone before asking Akale.

"We have been invited to a friendly dinner, and meeting of Zhong-shan's colleagues."

"In a public hall?"

"Well, this is a communist country, public halls are in the spirit of things." Akale sat down and looked down at his work. "I believe this is more formal. A meeting of like-minded colleagues."

"Oh." Yaqob replied carelessly. He went inside, the grey rooms almost cave-dark before Yaqob's eyes adjusted to the lack of sun. A meeting of men like Zhong-shan did not interest him. He wanted to see the fire of the Chinese Communist movement. The orators of the people, the street-wise prophets in an age of cement and modernity. To hear old men speak of trains instead of revolution seemed...

When he entered his room, he saw the maid Shun laying on his bed. She was naked, a sight that stole Yaqob's thoughts. Fear and lust commingled in his heart. She was all there, pale skin, hair covering her nipples, her eyes soft and glistening like drops of cool water. He didn't know what to say. He said nothing.

"Come into bed with me." she requested. She didn't sound lusty, or like any girls his brother was known to keep around him. She sounded much the same as she always did. Her voice quavered. She sounded more like she was apologizing.

"I shouldn't..." Yaqob let out. He felt like he was on auto-pilot.

She pulled herself up. Her hair fell back. Nipples like drops of chocolate. "I have been wanting you for a long time. Please. I will make you feel good."

He couldn't lie to himself. He wanted it. All of him wanted it. His restraint was melting. But there were promises he'd made to himself, ideas of the person he needed to be.

She spread her legs. He'd seen this once before. He'd restrained himself then, perhaps because the reminder of why he should do so was there with him. But he was so far away. This was a new world. It could be his world.

He undressed and joined her. In the moment, to the surprise of his ego, he did not collapse and cease to be. When they were done, the Yaqob that rose out of bed was still him. He had not become his brother.

--

"You are an amiable man." Zhong-shan, all smiles, complimented Yaqob. They rode in the congressman's car, down the lit streets of Beijing, the sun setting over the city-scape. Zhong-Shan continued. "I expected a Prince to be a difficult friend to make. The untruth in my assumptions makes me happy."

"Thank you, congressman." Yaqob said unblinkingly. In truth, the compliment strummed a wrong note in his heart.

"You will find the Financial wing of the Communist party sensible, I think." Zhong-shan said, facing Akale. "All members of the party have their place. The moving rhetoric of the old guard, and the revolutionary wing, is a great thing to take in. But it does little for your purposes. Your war will not stir up great feelings on the left, but its meaning is a nuanced thing to us Financialists. There is a reason I take you to this meeting."

"We are honored to participate." Akale said.

Yaqob turned the meaning over. Or at least he tried to. Great feelings on the left? If Zhong-shan wasn't left, what was he? He could not make the words for a coherent idea. His mind was muddy. What was the meaning of anything that had happened that day? It was so much easier in books, with the author there to guide you through it. But reality is different. Reality, in the perspective of the human creature, in the moment, is a avant garde thing. Yaqob felt like he was putting together a puzzle through a kaleidoscope. He'd experienced the truest physical pleasure of his life that day with Shun. But there was a part of him, that last scrap of toddler consciousness perhaps, the simplest part, that told him watching the birds had been the sweetest pleasure of the day. It was simple. Honest to God simple. No doubts, no fears. Just his senses and the world. He wanted that feeling to himself, isolated from all the others. But that wasn't an option.

They arrived at the Hall of the People's Fervor for the Revolution. It wasn't a large building. In a sense, it looked like a slick pagoda designed by some American modernist. It had a grey, forbidding tone too it. Street lights lit the plaza in front. In the center was a statue. Promethean workers carried a young scholar on their shoulders, the scholar serene and powerful. Yaqob knew the identity of the young scholar by instinct. It was Wen Chu Ming. The Emperors and warlords of the past had built personality cults for themselves. There was certainly a nascent personality cult for Hou in Beijing, but it was an understated thing. The personality of Wen appeared to Yaqob like a communist Jesus, a martyr of revolution. Perhaps that was wise. Hou would age, and weaken, and expose his human weaknesses. The young death of Wen made him something immortal.

There was no pomp to the occasion. They were dropped off in the plaza. The sun was nearly gone out of the west, leaving a last pink glow. The air was cool and smelled of wet stone.

The Hall of the People's Fervor for the Revolution was a building without an explicitly clear purpose. It was best described as simply... public. It was all stone, but the patterns on the stone mimicked the paneling in wooden temples. Inside smelled sweet, like flowers, but Yaqob couldn't identify where the scent came from. The floor was hard grey stone.

The two Africans stood out, and the small numbers of lingering men and women did double takes, or watched them go by. Zhong-shan smiled and greeted like it was him that fascinated them. Their footsteps, and the whispering voices, echoed throughout the cavernous entryway.

From that entryway, smaller ways split off. Little rooms branched from those like grapes off a vine. But there was one larger room, one which everything seemed to orbit. It was a kind of court room. They went inside. Yaqob could imagine a cozy opera being held here. The red flag dominated.

In the middle of the room was a long table piled with food. Zhong-shan offered to bring his guests a plate. Akale accepted. Yaqob declined. People moved mildly around the room, a sort of polite ant colony. The noise of conversation echoed off the walls and made it sound like they were in a train station. Strangely, Yaqob found the sound soothing.

They coalesced into their seats. Zhong-shan brought dumplings for Akale, and an orange for Yaqob. The Chinese congressman stood in front of them like a showman, smiling broad, greeting all comers and introducing them to the Prince and the Ambassador. It was tedious. Yaqob could barely stand it, and made no effort to memorize people. The language barrier made it worse. Yaqob was learning Chinese quickly, but he hadn't mastered the language. Now he was bombarded with a flurry of different accents and voices. Some phrases rose above the others like solid turds in a sewage pond.

"I welcome the people of Africa."

"These are the men?"

"I hope your country knows peace again."

It was all simple. All pointless. Niceties for their own sake. Yaqob powered through. He thought of the birds.

The meeting was called to order. Zhong-shan reluctantly got back to his seat. A man in the center row stood up and addressed the room. The acoustics were excellent. His voice boomed.

"We are here to discuss the modernization of the armament carried by our reserves. This question is coming before congress. We represent the most knowledgeable in our field..."

The hall echoed. Yaqob stared across at the old men on the other side. He felt a feeling like bland despair. There was no great depth to the feeling. He was like a man, born on a featureless prairie, coming to terms that all he would ever know was that prairie. This was exactly where he belonged at the moment, but the fact he belonged there rattled his nerves. If heaven was the birds, that simple uninterrupted pleasure, then hell was this feeling, being here in this room, looking across at the old men on the other side and wondering if they had souls.

He had to do something.

When?

What was he supposed to do?

This. But...

"This is where I come in." Zhong-shan said proudly in an aside to Akale and Yaqob. Several speakers had cycled through their speeches by now. Zhong-shan stood up.

"The question of rearmament is inevitable, and the question that it will be paid for is irrelevant. What we should think about is how to weaken the blow. With the great machinery of the people eating into the resources of the country, the most likely way to reimburse our great society is for the outdated armaments to be given a final use! Our new friend in Africa is engaged in war. The Ethiopian state fights with weapons left over from the Great War. They have a need for our old arms, and would repay us. I move we debate and come to an agreement on this. Are there objections to this course of action?"

Yaqob listened, not because of any oratorical power of Zhong-shan's, but because the war in his home country disturbed him, and by disturbing him it interested him.

"There is an obvious objection." A man across the room stood up, and was quickly recognized by the floor so he could continue. "It is a matter of optics. How will it appear if we support a monarch to crush his enemies? You might call this mutual aid, or a bargain deal. And if we only considered the financial consequences, perhaps it would be a bargain deal. But the people will look on us poorly for this, and the left will use it like a spear to pierce our reputations."

"Is reputation the only thing that matters to you?" Zhong-shan replied, his voice confident and accusing as he pointed at his opponent. "What kind of political creature is this? Is this ambition? It cannot be public service!"

Akale licked his lips. Yaqob was surprised to see the Ambassador invested in the argument. What were a few old guns? Those words, What kind of political creature is this?, rung in his mind like a eulogy.

They did not reach the decision before the end of the meeting.

It let out, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Whatever Zhong-shan expected had not come to pass. He ordered his driver to bring the Ethiopians back to the embassy while he stayed behind.

Perhaps it was the night, the ghostly glow of street lights showing a quiet city like the skeletal corpse of the bustling urban day. Perhaps it was all that had happened, all that had confused him. Whatever it was, Yaqob felt a deep melancholy. He was like child away from his home. When he thought about it, he realized that was exactly what he was, and the melancholy sunk deeper.

"He's talking about rearming us completely." Akale said. His eyes were wide and concentrated as if he were reading an especially exciting book. "It would be. That would be the greatest diplomatic victory. We should pursue it."

Yaqob said nothing.

"Hou. Would Hou accept it? He met you. He likes you I think..." Akale was rambling.

Yaqob didn't pay attention. It was one ear and out the other. He laid his head back, closed his eyes, and embraced the end of the day like it was his savior.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Early September: Djibouti, Ethiopia
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Djibouti had the reputation of a Sun City, but to Leyla it looked like an endless warehouse district. There were no flashy signs, no glamorous people or modern showcase architecture. The dull adobe buildings hardly rose above ground level. Cracked cement roads ran through the city, criss-crossing with rough dirt paths, the main courses crowded with pedestrians, slowing the trucks that belched diesel fumes into the scorching air.

The heat was intense. Leyla followed Elias off the train, feeling meek as she exited into this alien place. Sweat beaded on her forehead before they'd crossed the street. They'd dressed for this, wearing the cotton robes girded with belts, holsters openly visible. In the distance, she could see the steel pinnacles of great battleships. Elias eyed the hulking towers suspiciously as they went into an open air coffee house. Somalis and Arabs sat on benches, teeth green by chewing khat, talking loudly among themselves. They saw Leyla and Elias, but they did not seem to register them.

She heard bits of conversation. The navy had moved from Mogadishu. They would hunt pirates. There was a war in Somalia. A war? Elias ordered coffee for the both of them, and they sat down on a pillowed bench.

She tried to listen, but her attention wandered as she took in the overwhelming amount of new things. For such an uninviting city, it was surprisingly diverse. There were Ethiopians and Somalis, but also Arabs, and blacks, and whites as well. They were mixed together, unaware of the new comers as far as she could tell.

Elias handed her coffee. "Ras Hassan has declared a jihad in the name of the Somali Muslims." He kept his voice low.

"Jihad?" she knew Ras Hassan as an important noble, and she knew that he worried the Shotel.

"It was a long time coming. But why has the Bahr Negus abandoned Mogadishu and come here? That leaves Adal uncontested."

"What do you think?"

Elias shrugged. "Probably treason."

"Should we investigate it since we are here?"

"No. We have a job to do."

She remembered, but she didn't understand its importance. Djibouti was the hub of a drug trade, one that had spread throughout the rough parts of Africa. To her it seemed irrelevant.

"Where next?" she asked, sipping the bitter brew.

"Now, there is a man we need to speak to. His place of business is somewhere you will not like." Elias pulled out a pack of cigarettes: Marvolo's, with an image of the pyramids on the front. He lit one, looking toward the door.

"I will not like? What kind of place is it?"

"You will see." he said, "I want you to learn that we cannot work in places that are comfortable to us."

"I know this." Leyla replied, "I am not a little girl. I am willing to take risks."

"Good" Elias grunted, cigarette clinched between his teeth. He pulled it out and held it over an ashtray. "You are here because one gun is better than two. Do not say anything unless someone is preparing to draw on us. Do not show your feelings."

"Am I of any use to you?" she asked, holding back feeling as much as she could. She felt like she was going to burst. Sadness, angry, fear, anxiety, exhaustion. She couldn't really tell anymore.

"Yes. I told you. One gun is better than two. Now come on. Watch what I do, listen to what I say. You are in school today."

They went into the sun-tortured streets. Even palm trees wilted in the heat. The streets were loud, the throaty rumble of trucks, people shouting at each other instead of talking. Leyla tailed Elias so closely she almost stepped on his boots more than once.

"I thought this place was dangerous." she said, watching a young girl heedlessly leading a mule past a beggar as if he were a rock.

"It is." Elias replied. They walked through an alley. "But not in the middle of the day. The freight companies pay guards. They work better than the police in Addis, if we are to be honest."

She thought of the bored looking officers in their shoddy police booths back home. Here, she'd seen armed men, but she hadn't thought of them as professionals.

"If they work better during the day, why don't they work at night? Wouldn't that bring safety?"

Elias smiled back at her. "They are part of who make it dangerous. The line between private policeman and gang member is academic. The freight companies have other interests. Moving narcotics, apparently. Working with pirates. Slavery."

"Slavery?"

They were on a main street again, as busy as before. The battleships loomed closer. The sun reflected like a laser from the rising tower of the nearest. Along the street was a mixture of rough shops and long warehouses where men loaded and unloaded trucks.

Somewhere, in the distance, she thought she heard a gunshot. Nobody else reacted.

"Don't worry, I won't let you be a slave." he said, grinning as they approached a door. The outline of an ibis appeared burned into the adobe wall, as if it were branded. "Remember what I told you." he said. He opened the door, and the smell of smoke overcame her. Some of it was tobacco, but she detected smells intermingled of which she was not familiar. They went inside.

They were in a small room, a tall man with a turban and a holstered gun looking down on them. The entrance into the next room was concealed by a curtain of beads.

"Who are you?" the armed man asked. His voice was like a big drum. String music came from the other side of the beads.

"Your master knows I am here." Elias replied.

"I don't know that. Your weapons?"

"My hip feels lonely without it." Elias patted his holster. They shared a look, Elias irreverent, the guard unwavering. Elias started to undo his belt. Leyla followed his lead.

"I will take you, but you will leave the weapons." he disarmed them, slinging their belts and holsters over his shoulder before leading them through the beads, into a dark room filled with smoke. They walked toward a door on the other side of the room. A man was playing an oud in the corner. Every surface to sit was covered in sheets and pillows. Men lounged lazily, not much different than in the coffee shop, nursing hookah nozzles. Near the oud player was a stage. An olive-skinned girl walked across it...

Leyla's heart jumped in her throat. The girl was completely naked accept for silver chain she wore around her hip. Leyla had never seen another person unclothed before, aside from perhaps little children, and the sight felt invasive. The girl, looking like she was in a trance, danced slowly. She laid down on her back, hiked her... buttocks in the air, and lit a cigarette on a nearby candle. As they passed into another room, the girl began to smoke the cigarette with her...

"You are the Shotel!" she heard a shrill male voice in front of her. Her head shot forward as if she'd been caught doing something she wasn't supposed. They'd entered through another beaded door, into a smaller room. At its center was a man who could have weighed half a ton. He had a bench to himself, looking like a massive lumpy pillow in his robes.

"Relax." Elias started, "The Shotel doesn't care about what you do here. That's the business of the local courts."

"I do not think about the local courts." the big man replied with a big crocodilian grin, "But if you do not care, why are you here? You are not one of my employees. This place is for Ibis Company workers to relax."

"...and give their money back to the company." Elias said, "I'm not here to spend money. I'm here for information."

"Is the girl a trade?" the big man looked hungrily around Elias at Leyla. "I didn't think your agency employed girls."

A trade? Leyla's heart skipped. Her skin went clammy. She felt vulnerable, seeing what this place was, and for a second, her mind entertained the thought that she might have been recruited for this all along. She wanted to run.

"No trade." Elias's smiled washed away for a second, and he looked dangerous. Dangerous in a way that made her feel safe again. "Abba, this is Agent Leyla. Leyla, this is Abba al'Hadad, boss of Ibis Company."

Leyla said nothing. Abba gave her a suspicious look, before turning his attention back to Elias. "I did not expect the girl, but you know I don't give information without a fee. You have dispensation?"

Elias's grin came back. "You've worked with my kind before. Yes. You will be paid."

"Then ask your question."

"Who is the Hakim? The good doctor? We know he is involved with smuggling into Adal, and perhaps even Swahililand. We've retrieved information that he is smuggling something of interested to warlords..."

"The Hakim." Abba shuttered. "I have never met the man, but I don't like his people."

"Dangerous?"

"No." Abba said, "Unsavory. He rents our services from time to time. I only worked with him once. He hires ugly people. Victims of mutilation I think."

"Who is he using now?"

Abba smiled. "Well, this is where I need to be payed, isn't it?"

Elias pulled out an envelope. Like he were a performing magician, he showed the envelope to the fat man, then slowly drew out its contents. There was a thick stack of tan bills tied together with twine. The fat man licked his lips as if he were being presented a particularly succulent cake. "I do like fresh notes!" he said as Elias put them in his balloon fingers.

"Will that do?"

"I could keep this money and have you thrown out."

Leyla looked to Elias for a reaction, but saw nothing. "You could." he started, "But why create trouble?"

"You would be no trouble at all." that crocodilian smile was back. It might have been ear to ear if it wasn't for the man's ham-like cheeks.

"I wouldn't be." Elias replied, "But if we were to disappear, the Shotel would be back. The loss of two agents is the loss of reputation. If our people are to do their jobs, we have to keep that reputation."

"And if this city falls?" Abba leaned forward, like a fat cat sitting up.

"To Ras Hassan? Do you think that occupation by some desert nomads will stop the Shotel?"

Abba held his pose, saying nothing, staring down at the two agents as if they were ants beneath his magnifying glass. Leyla saw his body guards standing all around, and knew she and Elias couldn't take them all. Could he see her thoughts?

Then Abba al'Hadad laughed, low and hearty, sounding like a train starting off from the station. "You are right. It costs me nothing to give this information to you. They are using the docks belonging to Tall Palms. The goods come in by truck and are loaded onto trawlers. They load at midnight, Wednesdays and Fridays."

"Tonight is Wednesday." Elias said.

"It is. Like I said, you are looking for mutilated men."

"Do you know, perhaps, what boats they will use? That would save us trouble."

"No." Abba waved his hand at the big guard. "Give them their weapons back. They are not a threat. My Shotel friends, it was pleasant meeting with you. May Allah guide you."

"Yes." Elias nodded, "Allah guide you too."

--

There was, off the main road near the port, a safe house. It was a studio apartment, sparsely furnished. They ate a flavorless meal of canned lentils. The light in the room shifted as the sun went down.

Leyla missed the propaganda office. The repetitive arguments between artists and agents. The smell of coffee. Scraps of paper and ink stains showing up in places they shouldn't be. The fact she could go home, see her father, relax knowing tomorrow wouldn't bring any challenges she hadn't known before.

"How is your first day in the field?" Elias asked.

"It's a lot to take in."

"You're taking it better than I expected. I thought you might cry, when we were out of public."

She said nothing. Her eyes were heavy, her head numb from all the unprocessed thoughts. But now he said it, she was feeling the urge to cry. She fought it by saying nothing.

Sunlight came orange through the window. Elias went to it and looked out. "I'm going to scout out the building. I've waited this long because the workers will be leaving for home now, and the streets will be hectic. I'll be less conspicuous. You should clean your gun."

"I did when we were on the train."

"And we've been in this dirty fucking town since then. You need to do something."

She nodded. He went for the doorknob.

"One more thing." she said.

He turned around, looking at her inquisitively.

"Why does it matter this Doctor sells drugs? There are no laws against it."

"That doesn't matter. We are not the police."

"By why are we trailing this doctor?"

Elias dropped his hand from the door and turned to face her. "What has come to our attention isn't that this unnamed doctor is selling drugs. It's that he keeps himself secret. Okay, that's interesting, it's what made him high profile enough for us to notice. But what's more interesting is who he sells to. The Swahili communists? Okay, perhaps they are selling across the border, making extra money selling into Ostafrika. But Adal? Ras Hassan? Do you see what I mean?"

"I am not political."

"Ras Hassan has one thing on his mind. We've all known it. He's a barracks man. Money? He lives like a warrior, not a King. That he would be involved in a drug trade. Well, as far as we know, he's only worked for one thing. It is this war he has started."

"You knew he was going to start it?"

"I'm surprised you didn't know. Even as a little girl in school."

"Then why didn't you stop him?"

Elias grinned. "Politics. I need to go. Keep yourself busy with that gun, Agent Leyla." He left her.

She had more questions. Alone in this room, she said them out loud. "Why send us?" she asked the naked walls. That sentence, like the top of an iceberg, hid a more complex thought. Why risk agents on such a bland lead? Was there some great security risk in a warlord taking up an unusual hobby? And even if it meant something, something they didn't see yet, what could it possibly matter?

Flies buzzed around the open cans sitting on the counter. The fading sunlight was now a dull red, an orange went blood orange. She pulled the magazine from her gun and began. The stale masculine scent of oil grew more and more as she worked. She was certain the smell would stay with her the rest of the night.

It was dark when Elias returned. "Are you ready?" he asked.

She'd put her gun back together by then, and he'd found her nearly napping. She sat up and nodded. They went out into the night.

The air was cool now, though it still held the scents of baked earth and gasoline. It was quiet enough she could hear the ocean, the tide playing its music not far from them. But there were still other sounds, city sounds. Somewhere she heard muffled gunfire. From many directions, there were lively voices, always coming from a different alley, or an open door. An old woman sat in the dust, wrapped in her shawl like a cigar. It was cold. Leyla pulled her robe close around her.

There were still people in the road. They gathered in front of the doors of shops, absorbed in their own conversations. The battleship spires glowed bright blue from the moonlit sea.

"Food." a beggar called out. He didn't look at anybody, only the ground. Leyla gave him a wide berth. "Food." she heard him behind her.

They stuck the side of the road, beneath the shadow of the chipped buildings. Some people looked at them. Most minded their own business. They rounded a corner and saw a small crowd in front of an open door. A man was holding another against the doorway, putting a knife to his neck. Elias didn't seem to notice, or care.

They heard gunfire toward the center of town. One shot. Elias didn't seem to notice, or care.

Elias stopped in front of a long warehouse, adobe, painted white, two straight palms growing in a patch of dirt out front, next to each other like guards. A thin dirt path lead around it, creating an urban canyon through which she could see the sea. He looked down the road, then turned down the path. Leyla scrambled to keep up.

A sound reverberated, the clap of wood against wood, echoing like a gunshot. Leyla stopped, her senses increasing, like a gazelle that'd just heard a lion. Elias continued.

There were other sounds. Scraping. Maybe voices. It was hard to hear over the murmur of the sea.

Elias climbed the chain link fence dividing the access road from the property of Tall Palms. He moved slow, but the fence still jingled ever so slightly, making Leyla wince. She went over after him. She was clumsier, but she weighed less, so she got over quietly enough.

"There it is." Elias whispered, pointing out toward the burbling sea. Big floodlights bathed the crystal blue water in artificial day. There were several ships in port, but among them was a smaller thing dwarfed by the freighters flanking it. A large beat up yacht. Elias, crouching, moved closer, between the sheds and tall stacks of crates.

Leyla tugged at his robe. Her eyes were wide. "Are there guards?" she whispered.

"Patrol every hour on the hour." he whispered back, pointing to his watch. It was fifteen after. She let go, and followed him. They ducked behind a shed. Elias pulled out binoculars. Leyla saw her partners back, and heard distant voices.

He looked at her and pointed at the binoculars. She gingerly took them, and leaned forward so she could see the ship. There were people surrounding it, working, lifting boxes. She brought the binoculars to her eyes.

At first, what she saw was a blur. Elias grabbed the binoculars with one hand and pushed her head into them with the other. It came into focus. Every move she made sent her vision whirring across the zoomed distortion, but she steadied and adapted herself, finding faces.

There was something wrong with the man she saw. He wore a keffiyeh covering his face, and an eyepatch covering one eye. The rest of his skin had a sickly pallor, perhaps swollen.

She heard a scuffle behind her. Elias shouted, but the wind left him. Her head shot around to see what was happening. Big hands grabbed her. She dropped the binoculars, and found herself hoisted like a sack over the shoulder of a tall man. His body odor assaulted her nose. From between his arms, she saw Elias being picked off the ground. His gun was taken from his holster.

"Where do we go?" the man in front asked.

"The boss says give them to Abba al'Hadad."

Leyla's holster was pressed into the big man's neck. As he walked, her hand slapped against his holster.

His holster.

Her mind began to work.

"Come on little girl. Abba al'Hadad will be happy to see your pretty face."

Elias was hanging limp. It was only her now. Her hand slapped her carrier's holster. She felt for the leather flap and pulled it back as cautiously as she could. Her fingers felt the cold wooden grip.

In one quick move, she pulled it out. She felt the big man's muscles tense as he reacted to her movement. She freed the gun and shot him through the belly. Hot blood splattered her feet, and she was dropped. Before she hit the ground, she fired two more shots, both hitting the man in front of her. She didn't see him go down before she hit the ground. It knocked the air out of her with a girlish "Huff." The big man hit the ground squirming. Blood pooled on the hot cement, beneath the cold moon.

She jumped to her feet. Elias was waking on the ground.

"We need to go!" she said, not worrying about sound. She looked around, expecting to see ugly-faced brutes, monsters beneath keffiyahs. She saw the boat behind them, its men still working, indifferent to the scuffle they surely heard.

"I got the name." Elias said. He looked dazed. His eyes widened when he saw the two bodies.

"We need to go!"

Elias nodded. They jumped the fence and went back to the safe house. Nobody bothered them.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Early September: Begmeder Province
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Beneath the small provincial church was another chapel, an older one, accessed by an exposed window, buried in the ground and used like a cellar. It smelled of dust and musk, overpoweringly so. Ergete found it hard to breath when it was hot. Sometimes he'd crawl out like a wolf leaving its den, tasting the fresh air on his tongue. He'd see his body, covered in earth, all the same uniform beige. This is what they'd made him into. A wild dog. A feral freedom fighter.

When the sun came up in the east, a ray of light filtered through, and he could see all but the corners of his hiding place. At other times, he might use candles, if the priest was willing to lend them. He didn't ask for them often. Somehow there was more dignity in pawing his way to the surface than in begging for scraps. Most of the time, his den was as dark as death.

But when there was light, what he saw was ancient rough-hewn brick, the bottom half blackened with soot. The priest told him it was the work of Yodit, the bandit-queen of ancient times who'd brought down holy Aksum. Of course, people loved to make claims to the country's storied history. Perhaps a shepherd's stone pen was laid by Lalibela, or a groove in the wall of a well is where Sahle Selassie sat while drawing water for his horses. One day they would remember this place as the burrow that hid Fitawrari Ergete, the warrior for liberty. They would forget about Yodit. He would forge his own legend.

He kept this faith in himself, even after the defeat of his shifta army on the Tekeze River two months earlier. Not defeat. Obliteration. He was a hunted man now. His whole movement was hunted. The Neftanya and their mercenary militias were on the warpath, hanging suspected revolutionaries.

On the night of the first of September, the priest brought him cold chicken. A treat, better than dry bread and dusty water. It was not safe for him to go out and get his own provisions. The church was on a hill overlooking a nearby rivulet, along which a small village of stone and driftwood huts stood. It was a quiet place. But even here, the Neftanya hunted.

They had not participated in the final battle. The Neftanya were settlers put on feudal tracts forfeited by the old nobility when they rebelled against the Emperor. Now they were the over-proud new nobility of Ethiopia's old country, pretending they had quashed the rebellion on their own, or that they could do such a thing. The Imperial army had won that battle. The Neftanya only followed, squeezing rents from the defeated people. He'd heard from the priest how the Neftanyna now collected their rents at gun point.

The old nobility, the Makwanent of Ethiopia's feudal past, hadn't possessed the same cruelty. They had been warriors, knights in a sense, driven by the reputation of honor. It was different with the Neftanya. They were not warriors. They wore rich clothes, collected western luxuries, and fussed over every coin or ounce of wheat. Their greed bled the north.

It would all be avenged. Ergete knew it. He ate his chicken, spiced with dust. He would rise up again. The entire province would. The Neftanya couldn't put out the fire when it raged. They wouldn't be able to snuff the embers. He would bring democracy to this place, and fair dealing.

The nights were cold. He couldn't light a fire; the smoke would draw the wrong kind of attention. He wrapped himself in old clothes. His hair grew thick and bushy. They'd done this to him. And the days went on.

There were a few who knew who he was. They were friends of both him and the priest, as well as a couple of his trusted lieutenants. They brought him news. Houses burned. Men hanged. But good news too. Villages were banding together and driving out Neftanya militias. The government was silent. So was the Mesfin in Gondar. It was a civilian war, fought by the people, ignored by the state.

It was not a surprise then, when he heard horse hoofs beating up the road to the church. He didn't consider it might be the enemy. What would that mean? They would find him, hang him. But it was not his destiny to be a martyr. What good was that? So it would be his own people. And, that early September morning, he found his faith vindicated.

He recognized the young man, but not his name. When Ergete came out of his hole, his visitor grimaced. The young man was dressed in white robes and had an Italian rifle slung over his back, and a shawl slung around his shoulders. Though his hair was bushy, he couldn't grow more than a few patches of facial hair, clinging to his cheeks like dying desert shrubs. Ergete, by comparison, was caked in filth, his hair the same color as his skin and clothes. And what did he smell like? He didn't know, having lived with the smell for so long, but he was sure it wasn't pleasant.

"Fitawrari" the man said questioningly.

"Yes, my brother." Ergete put his hand on the warrior's shoulder. He left a dusty hand-print.

The visitor took a minute, as if considering. The elderly priest tottered beneath the eave of the old church. The former's expression straightened up. "I was sent by Shaleqa Kaleyesus. He has scouted a Neftanya home, and wants your opinion. He says he thinks it is safe you come out."

"Kaleyesus. Good man!" Ergete smiled. Then he laughed, looking up at the sky, professing his joy to the maker. "He has work! Yes my brother!"

"Good. There are five of us..."

"That is enough! But I need to be ready. Go! Get me a horse! Fetch my rifle, it is hidden in the church!"

"A horse?"

"I will be fine with a draft horse. Meet me that way" he pointed, "Up stream, where the water bends around the ridge. You can find this place?"

"Yes." The young man responded. He had the air of military discipline, though he was no soldier. Like many of his age, he put on an act learned from watching the Provincial militia. They drilled in Gondar, which gave the young man away as a townsman.

They parted. Ergete walked over the ridge. He relished the feel of the sun and the wind. Alive! In the world again! His joints were stiff, and his feet ached as if he'd never used them before. These were good feelings. The feeling of life returning to his blood.

He came to the pool in the river, beneath the hill, two miles from the sight of the village. He stripped naked and walked into the water. Layers of filth came off of him, the water tickling his skin. He saw the dirt float away. It was as if he'd shed a layer of skin. He dipped his head in, running his hands through the great bush of hair surrounding his head like a mane. When he was done with this, while he was still in the water, he dragged his clothes in and gave them a similar treatment, before hanging them on a branch. It was as if freedom was won, and he'd entered the paradise of his own make. When he was done, he sat in the sand along the shore and let the sun dry every inch of him. He could not get caught. That was not his place in history now.

When the young shifta came back, bringing the second horse and his rifle, Ergete stood up and got dressed. They rode together over the hills. The feeling of the horse beneath him was like coming home.

--

They met beneath a pillar of red rock, in the shadow of its lean. There were half a dozen of them, varied in age. Four of them, including Ergete, were on horseback. He knew Shaleqa Kaleyesus; a man with volcanic brown-grey skin and a beard that pointed down across his chest like a dagger.

"This is your party, my friend?" Ergete leaned over the pommel of his saddle and smiled.

"It is hard to find men." Kaleyesus replied, stony faced.

Ergete waved. "This is enough. Do not worry." he looked out over the undulating countryside. Renewed rain brought up grass in bright green tufts across the scrubby land.

"The homestead is there, behind the second ridge. Look, where trees follow that spine of rock." Kaleyesus said, pointing south.

"Is it guarded?"

"There is a man and his son. I know them. They collect rents in my village, riding together, carrying rifles."

"They are armed." Ergete spat. "A good house can be a fortress for two men."

"I am not sure we have enough to move on it without wasting men."

"We have enough! A fortress is pregnable. But it means we must bring all our skills with us. Men, were you with me at Tekeze River?"

"Aye!" four men called out.

"Well then, we have skills. You." he pointed at the man who'd stayed quiet, "Follow these men. They will show you how to fight." he looked at them all, "We will come in from the ridge, and see what we can see. What happens next we will decide from there. Ready?"

The others said nothing, but they rode.

They moved swift enough, the horses adapted to this kind of country, moving sure-footed over the faint trails cut into the sedimentary rock. Ergete paid attention to the countryside. He saw water to slake his horses, and outcroppings where a shooter would have an advantage. He noticed the slope of the land, how the hills rose to the east and diminished to the west. The flat lands in the thin river valleys hosted the towns, and the plump land for wealthy estates. Where the hills rose in the east, there would be the small villages and lonely crags. Hiding places. Civilization grows like the grass: thick and inescapable by the rivers where the streams meet, but thin and blind in the rocky places and the highlands of the world.

Two miles on, they came across a knoll that overlooked a farm. The house was in the spindly Italian style, a quaint African colonial cottage as might be envisioned in the European mind. Two stories. A veranda. It had its own well, stables, and a set of out-buildings. A field of green wheat stretched toward the west.

The shiftas leaned into the rocks. "Look" Kaleyesus pointed, "There is one horse. They own three."

"Two are out?" Ergete asked.

"The owner and his son. That would leave their women." the man said, "His wife, and their daughter."

"Let's take them then." Ergete left his hiding place and dashed down the hill, rifle in hand, jamming the bolt forward and loading five polished bullets. The men followed, kicking rocks down the hillside. As they closed on the bottom of the valley, the Neftanyna's horse whinnied. A dog started to bark from inside a shed. Kaleyesus and his men went for cover. Ergete walked patiently toward the house. Nervous, a young shifta followed him.

A shot was fired from a second story window. It whizzed past Ergete's arm and struck a stone fence post near the stable. Ergete and his follower dove for cover. A second shot rang out. It struck the second man in the back of the neck and came out his jaw, spraying gore into the dust. The dying man couldn't speak, but made a wet babbling sound as dark blood spread out beneath him.

Ergete put the bead of his sights on that darkened window and fired a shot. "Give up! We have you outnumbered!" he yelled.

Another shot rang out from the window. Kaleyesus fired back. "It was the same window." he said, looking at Ergete. "Put hell in that window. I will go in."

Four guns fixed on window. Ergete replaced the bullet he'd spent. All at once, the four of them opened fire, pouring what was in their guns as Kaleyesus dashed for the door. He kicked it in. There was screaming. Ergete reloaded as fast as he could, but his hands were shaky, his reflexes weak from his time in hiding. Two shots were heard in the house.

"Come." Kaleyesus yelled from the window. They went in, leaving the youngest shifta at the door. They passed rooms furnished with imported items. The stairs creaked under the armed men's weight. Upstairs, a woman wailed so mournfully it made Ergete's skin crawl.

A young woman in green silk was crouched over a dead man. The man was young, his face clean-shaven and boyish, his expression in death one of wide-eyed surprise. He'd been stabbed in the chest, and the wide wound poured blood, soaking into woman's shawl.

"Get out of here. Run for the bushes! We will burn this place!" Ergete told the girl. She did not seem to hear him. "We don't want to burn you!" he said, pulling her by the shawl. She held onto the boy until her fingers, slick with blood, lost grasp of him. Her cry was like an elephant, but she said no words. Downstairs his men had already began looting.

"That was the son." Kaleyesus said, looking down at the dead man.

"I am not worried about it." Ergete replied, "Would they have ammunition? Weapons? That is the most important thing."

"This boy rode with his father when he collected rents. I saw the father strike my friend with the butt of his rifle."

"Is this the first time you've killed a man?"

"I don't know."

"This boy has killed too. Come. We have to work." Ergete rifled through a chest, finding only clothes. He didn't pay attention to Kaleyesus, but instead tore through the room like an angry baboon, turning things over, looking everywhere he could. When he found money, he took it. He found a map and took that too. The rough wood floor complained beneath his feet. He stepped in the young man's blood. It stuck to his boot, and he heard its wet slap as he went into the next room.

He found ammunition for the boy's gun, but the rounds did not work for his. Kaleyesus had the weapon, so Ergete gave him the ammo. Two of the others had found the pantry, and were throwing the food into a burlap grain sack.

A gunshot rang out, striking the door. The shifta on guard duty scurried in. "I saw four!" he said, looking spooked. The shiftas dodged for cover by the windows.

"We should tell them we have his children." the lookout whispered.

"We let the girl go, and she knows the boy is dead."

"Her brother." Kaleyesus said. His voice was calm, matter of fact.

"Come out of my house, murderers!" A man screamed from outside. Two shots range out in quick order. Ergete heard one slam against the wall, cracking the plaster.

Ergete poked an eye out to see if he could get a sight on their besiegers. "It is no good here. Kaleyesus, you guard the door with this man. The two of you, follow me." He lead them upstairs, and directed them to take the second room facing to the front. He took the room with the corpse.

There was movement behind the back wall of the stable. Human? He couldn't tell. But the walls were thin, made from poor wood, so Ergete took the shot. The enemy replied with three, and he ducked. All three came through the window. Two burst into the back wall, the third striking the open chest. The shiftas in the next window returned fire. The short outburst over, it went quiet again.

Ergete went to the back room. The window looked out to the rising hills, and the shadows of the Semien mountains beyond. He squinted, trying to see something human amidst the red rocks and green shrubs. Surely they would cover it. But...

"Hold them." he shouted into the two in the next room. He flew down the stairs and went to the back door. Kaleyesus could see him from the front room. They exchanged looks: Kaleyesus inquiring, Ergete fired by determination.

"What are you doing?" Kaleyesus mouthed.

Ergete said nothing. He kicked open the back door and pushed himself flat against the wall.

Two shots range out from the back hills. One went through the door and struck the back wall. Ergete shut the door. Now he knew. He went back up the stairs and took up his position in the room with the corpse.

The siege rolled on. As far as battles went, it was boring, but both sides seemed to hold each other in check. Ergete ordered his men to spare their ammunition for when they were certain. Outside, the Neftanyna's taunted them.

"We will hang you in the stable! You will die smelling horse dung!"

"Come out, shifta murderers. We will send you to hell!"

There had to be a way out of course, this couldn't be his fate. It couldn't be the fate of the revolution. Ergete racked his brain trying to figure it out. No fleeing out the back. Could they get to their horses? Jump out a side window? There were plenty of crags to hide them once they got to the hill, but there was a good sixty yards of open terrain there.

"Fire!"

That was Kaleyesus's voice, from downstairs. No gunshots followed.

"Fire! This house is on fire!" Kaleyesus was shouting up the stairwell this time. They were being smoked out! Ergete scrambled out of his perch. Rifles cracked outside. He was rushing down the stairs, behind two of the others. Smoke filled the bottom room.

Much of the building was wood. It would go up quick.

"We need to go out! Get the ammo! Out to the barn!" Ergete barked.

"The Barn?" one shifta questioned.

Ergete ignored him. "Once you get out, shoot in the direction you know them to be. Ready?"

He didn't wait for an answer. The smoke was growing thicker when he burst through the front door, a grey cloud billowing after them. Gunfire burst from all around. He dashed, firing his carbine without aiming, frantic, bullets whizzing. A man screamed behind him. He didn't look back. The barn door was chained, but he shot it, and rushed in. A man in blue robe stood inside, holding a pistol, startled by the new arrivals. Ergete smashed his face in with the butt of his gun, and the man went down, his nose a bloody ruin.

"We lost two men." Kaleyesus informed him. They were down to the three of them now. The man who'd came to retrieve Ergete in his church hide out was one of the slain.

There was nowhere to shoot from. Ergete pulled a curved knife from his belt and slit the throat of the enemy on the ground. They were trapped.

"Can we rush out into the hills from the back?" Ergete asked.

"That is the horse pen." Kaleyesus replied. There was blood on his clothes, and on his face. Splattered. Not his.

"That is open ground..." the third man said.

"We have to do something."

"We have them!" he heard a shout from outside.

"They will burn this place soon."

There was movement. Ergete fired wildly at the wall, screaming like a lion. He saw the flames start in the corner.

"This cannot be it!" Ergete yelled, "It cannot end here!"

The fire rose rapidly like hell had opened a gate across the wall. Smoke filled their lungs. The grey air glowed a sickly orange. Not able to think of anything else, Ergete lead them to the back. To his horror, that door was also burning. He could hear the wood crackling, sounding like gunfire. They could no longer talk. He wanted to scream, but he could hardly breath. His eyes burned, and watered. His throat felt like sandpaper.

Something huge burst through the door, roaring at them, flames jumping all around. At first, Ergete's tortured eyes thought it was an elephant. Men came out and grabbed them. This was it, they would be lynched. The elephant was an armored car, rough looking, old enough that the wheels had spokes like a wagon.

They were brought outside. The fresh air filled his lungs, and tasted pure on his tongue. He couldn't see but a blue blur through his watering eyes.

"You are with the revolutionary shiftas?"

Ergete wheezed. His reply didn't sound like anything.

"You are wanted in Gondar. The Mesfin would like to speak to you."

As his eyes cleared, he saw the blood in the dust, and the fire engulfing the two buildings. A number of uniformed men were standing about, guarding well dressed prisoners.

"They are criminals! Shiftas!" and old man in green robes roared. The soldiers ignored him, walking right past as if he didn't exist.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Late August: Washington DC
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At night, he could still feel his right arm, and it hurt like the dickens. He was in the Senate, a faceless colleague giving a speech about Southern rights. His arm hurt. It was pure pain. He squirmed in his seat, his blood pumping, his face flush. He wanted to use the reclaimed arm against the man. Southern rights! Outside, he could hear the guns. The big ones, that thrummed in the pit of your stomach, like the Lord himself striking the earth with supernatural force. He clinched his fist. His right arm felt entirely like a clinched fist. How could they talk of Southern rights in here, while the traitors bombed good men just outside? The guns thrummed. A vase smashed. But that was a different kind of sound. It was three-dimensional. Real...

Milford sat up straight. He felt the missing arm fade from pain into nothingness, remembering slowly it's own absence. He was drenched in sweat, as if he'd just climbed out of the bath. His blankets were twisted around his leg, his pillows thrown to the floor. In the night, his boxer shorts had fallen below his waist. He hoisted them back up with his left arm. There were footsteps down stairs.

He pulled himself out of bed, ignoring the ache in his joints. His eyes adjusted to the weak light. Next to a maritime painting, there was an American flag hanging from a four foot steel pole: the essential decorative theme in every room. He grabbed it and carried it like a spear as he entered the hall.

The stairs creaked. Someone was coming up. Milford tried to crouch, though he did a bad job of it. A shadowy figure appeared, head first, coming up the stairway.

Milford sprang up like a warrior out of the trenches, screamed, and kicked the man in the chest.

"Get out of my house!" he roared. The man tumbled down the stairs. Milford chased after him, feet only barely grasping the carpeted steps. Before the man could heed him, Milford was on him, smashing him with the pole, the flag waving full in his face. The intruder scrambled to his feat and burst through the open door.

The night was dark and misty. Milford hoped to make out a getaway car, but the intruder hopped his neighbor's fence and disappeared into the murk.

--

"Senator, You didn't get a look at this man?" The cop asked. Red light flashed through the neighborhood. Milford was in the doorway, dressed now, spectacles resting on his nose. The lights were on, and hair that was ashy in the dark took on its peppered grey and red.

"I know who he was. I've been telling you, you need to beef up security in this town, there are war remnants out there!"

"I understand." The officer said slowly. He was a slight man, too much of an egghead to be a proper officer of the law. "But I need a description. We can't find these remnants..."

"You can find them! I saw a bar in Georgetown flying the Commiefornia flag! That one! I reported it, but last time I checked..."

"We can't tear down flags sir..."

"I'd call it probably cause! What, you can't guess what that means? What if some scum murders a kid and flies a flag that says 'Look I killed them and the fucking body is in here?' That's probably cause, right? Well, what the fuck are they flying remnant flags for if they aren't fucking remnants?"

"We'll look into it" the officer.

"You'll!!!" he was going to scream, but it caught up in his throat. "I'll remember this when you people are asking for donations." he said, slamming the door in the officer's face.

He went to the parlor and pulled a bottle of whiskey from the bar, pouring it straight. He kicked it back. What was this country coming to? He looked up at the photos on the wall. He had no wife, or kids of his own, but the Carnahan clan was a large one. He saw the photo of his niece, the young Livy. His rage burned again. He poured another drink. And then another, tossing them down his gullet like fuel. What the fuck was this country coming to?

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Late August: Addis Ababa
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It'd rained hard for most of the week. Every dip became a pond, and the main roads transformed into shallow rivers. The muddy back roads washed out onto the paved streets, coating everything at ground level with mud. Then it ended. The sun came out unusually hot, and the water on the ground became vapor in the air, the mud drying up and leaving the city caked in dirt and dust. The humidity was stifling, making a person sweat as soon as they went out doors, filling the city with the filthy smell of dust and mildew and body odor. The Imperial household treated this as an opportunity. Emebet Hoy Eleni invited a select number of guests and dignitaries to spend a night on Mount Entoto, above the sweltering city, to rest in the shade of the eucalyptus trees in the fresh air, and to camp like the biblical patriarchs and the Ethiopian Kings of old. Sahle came too, his presence expected. Not that he didn't want to come. There were people he wanted to see in the Queen Mother's company.

But he did not come for the mountains themselves, and fresh air didn't hold his attention for long. He and Rudolph von Lettow-Vorbeck went into one of the several one-hundred year old buildings that made up Menelik II's palace. Compared to the Imperial estate in the city, the Entoto Palace was a quaint compound, a series of cottages really, with rough plaster walls and floors made from eucalyptus planks. The rooms weren't much bigger than huts, and the roofs were thatched.

Rudolph sat across the table from him. The Ostafrikan wore a fez, a relic of a recent tour of the Muslim world, and a red patterned kaftan robe, giving him the appearance of an old relic of the Imperial era, a white man visiting foreign lands, looking to experience the sensual fantasies of the Orient. His skin was tanned beyond the natural color of his race. He'd brought Hashish from Esfahan, and presented some to Sahle as a gift.

"Early gift, for Enkutatash" Rudolph said, placing the last hand-rolled joint in an empty wine glass.

"That's weeks away." Sahle said, plucking from the glass. "I expect a gift for that day too."

"I have more treats from Djibouti." Rudolph replied. He watched as Sahle lit the stained paper cigarette and leaned back. The room filled with the acrid scent of the drug.

Outside, the after-sounds of conversation could be heard. The walls were thick, but the shutters on the glassless windows were not.

"Would I like Esfahan?" Sahle asked.

Rudolph smoothly picked a joint and lit it in one flawless move. "Perhaps. It's bohemian. The women are the creative types."

"That's worth a state visit." Sahle said. The tension in his body blew away with the wind whispering through the trees outside. He took a deep breath, the joint smouldering in his fingers. "Anywhere else?"

"Sevan yes." Rudolph said, "You may have to spend a week there before it bores you. Istanbul... no. It's a slum."

"Cairo?"

"Of course. Haven't you been there?"

"State visit." Sahle leaned forward. "A real one. Nothing but Empire business. It does not count."

"You should visit soon. I think it will go to shit before to long."

"I will."

The two men leaned far back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the chemical warmth of the drug to take effect. There was no true ceiling, but rather the skeleton of the roof itself, holding up the thatching still maintained by caretakers though this site was rarely visited by the royal family.

"Do you think she can love me?" Sahle said. He hadn't planned on saying it. It just came out.

"The American girl?" Rudolph replied. Sahle was aware from his periphery that the Ostafrikan looked up at him when he said this, but Sahle kept his gaze on the rafters above. "I don't see love in her. She seems like a child, to be frank."

"She does? Well, she is an adult." Sahle said.

"I don't think she is part of the world yet."

"I don't know what you mean."

Rudolph took a long drag, and ended it with an expectant pause. "You know." he said, not looking at the Emperor

It went quiet again. Just for a moment. But Sahle's mind was fixed, and his tongue was the only way to exorcise the fixation.

"But can she love me?"

"Perhaps. I am no expert. I just haven't seen it."

Sahle closed his eyes. He would find out tonight. She was just outside, with the other dignitaries, enjoying apéritif's in the mountainside wilderness. The conversation out there sounded boisterous now, but he could not hear the words. He worked on calming himself, to return his mind to its native carelessness.

There was a hard knocking at the door. Sahle and Rudolph looked up at once.

"Your majesty. There is a problem." he heard the familiar voice of a guard, a man whose name he did not know.

"A problem?" Sahle replied.

"The Tsehafi Taezaz wants you."

Sahle stood up and went to the door. He could still hear the active conversation. Now he was suspicious of it, and what had once sounded like lively conversation now sounded... menacing. It sounded a lot like shouting.

He went outside and saw two guards. They didn't look scared, but determined, the lions-mane ruffled atop their pith helmets, sub machine guns held close to their chests. He could hear the shouting now, coming from the courtyard. The sun was falling, and the shadows of the trees stretched long across the compound. Rudolph came up behind him. The two men followed the guards in the direction of the noise, where strings of lights illuminated a party in paused awkwardly mid-progress, well dressed ferengi looking embarrassed, sitting at white-clothe draped tables. Rudolph quietly whispered for the guards to put down their weapons.

All eyes were fixed on the scene in the courtyard. It was like a court's play, dinner and a show. Eleni watching stonily from the dais, her guests trying to look more uninvolved than they already were. In the middle, Desta Getachew stood like the walls of Harar against a man gesturing wildly in his face. After a moment's drug-hazed recollection, Sahle recognized the second man as Maxamed Nuux, the representative of Sahle's powerful subject Ras Hassan of Adal.

"There is his majesty!" Maxamed jeered, turning on Sahle as soon as he entered the light. Before the Emperor could come up with a response, the Somali turned his head like a cobra and spat at Sahle's feet. There was an audible gasp. Sahle recoiled. His guards rushed forward drove the Somali to his knees.

"What is this?" was the only reply Sahle could produce.

"You spit on our people, so I spit at you! That is what I do! Why do you station soldiers in the Ogaden? Why do you send your agents to spy on us? Are we not brothers?"

"Agents?"

"We caught two of your swine! Your Shotel pigs! They spy on the Emir!"

"There is better ways to broach the subject." Desta said sharply. The Tsehafi Taezaz hadn't looked up at the Emperor. His gaze was reserved for the fuming man beneath his feet.

"I spit on you too!" he said, spitting on Desta's feet. A guard acted instinctively and drove Maxamed's head into the dust.

"Don't do that." Desta said, "I won't have it said we abuse our guests."

"We will have our revenge!" Maxamed said the moment he was let back up. His lip was bleeding.

"Is there a message you mean to deliver?" Desta said calmly.

Sahle remained quiet. He saw his mother look at him disapprovingly. What had he done? Or was he just imagining her ire?

"Remove your soldiers!"

"Adal is part of the Ethiopian Empire. We are brothers. Our soldiers live on our shared land as comrades. I have no doubt that Ras Hassan sees it the same way."

"We demand you remove your soldiers and allow the Emir the right to his own defenses!"

"Demand?"

"I am making a reasonable request!" the Somali roared.

"His Imperial majesty has heard your request. Would you be so good as to remove yourself, knowing your message is delivered?"

"I demand an answer now! Justice demands it!"

The two men watched each other intensely. At last, Desta nodded. Maxamed was dragged away. Oddly, he did not say a word. Desta snapped his fingers, and a small band in the corner began to play. Desta looked meaningfully at Sahle and walked to the dais. Sahle followed.

"Have the agents been returned?" Eleni asked.

"Not yet." Desta replied.

"What agents?" Sahle said, keeping his voice low.

Eleni looked at him. There was a sharpness behind her maternal gaze, and Sahle felt guilty that he'd been partaking with Rudolph only moments before. After a moment, she spoke. "Hassan has gathered his warriors. Isn't that suspicious, son?"

"It is suspicious. Why did I not know about it?" Sahle's embarrassment about the hashish morphed into an embarrassed anger. He was the Emperor. Why was he the last to know?

"It is a delicate situation, your Imperial majesty. But one I have in control." Desta said with a smile. "I do not think Hassan is powerful enough to try anything. We have taken the necessary steps, but we don't want to provoke."

"You aren't thinking on withdrawing the troops?" Eleni asked, casting a severe look at the Minister of the Pen.

Desta smiled. "Of course not. But we shouldn't take this insult as anything more than foolishness."

"That man spit at the feet of the Lion of Judah!" Eleni said, "That isn't just foolishness! Do we allow everybody to spit at my son's feet?"

"He spat at my feet too." Desta looked out at the party.

"Your feet are not sacred."

"We will handle things as they come." Desta caught somebody's eye. He turned around and bowed to the Emebet Hoy. "I have business to attend to." She nodded. He walked away. Sahle was left alone with his mother. It was only then that he noticed Rudolph had left his side.

"That man is a coward." Eleni said, "He would not protect you."

"It doesn't seem wise to start a war over nothing." Sahle responded. He took a seat next to his mother, looking out at the party. Desta was at the table of Daniel Gablogian, a stout Armenian handling Negus Coffee's business in his country. Rudolph had disappeared. Sahle's eyes fell upon Livy Carnahan, seated at the same table as the corpulent pomegranate of a man Jefferson Davis Bacon.

"War is not the answer to everything, but it is not the only result when you stand up for yourself. Being a coward is more dangerous. If Hassan thinks we are weak, he will take advantage. If we show that we are strong, he will back away."

"I did not know Hassan was our adversary."

"You do not know because you chose not to know." his mother scolded.

"I cannot know if nobody will tell me." Sahle retorted. He looked at his mother. She kept facing forward, her expression placid but bold, like the statue of a pharaoh.

"It is your duty to take control, not to let control be given to you. If you spent more time thinking about being Emperor, instead of thinking of yourself. If you hadn't sent away your siblings, they could help..."

"We won't speak about them again." Sahle muttered. He sank in his seat. Every time he talked to her, she lectured him. It made him weary of her. Only this morning they'd argued about the other thing.

He looked back at Livy, a daffodil yellow dress on, seeming to glow among the rest as if she were the holy mother. She looked up at him shyly, then went back to her conversation with Bacon.

The evening was dead. Sahle knew a finished party when he saw one, and this was one. His mother brooded in the seat next to him. Outside, the conversation was low, eyes shifty. It was as if someone had let out an audible fart and everyone was avoiding taking responsibility or being blamed for it.

Eleni stood up. The music died. "I am an old woman, and I have yet to say my prayers! Let us retire to our tents! You will find your place in the field behind us. Your names should be posted."

Sahle stood up. The guests stood up and bowed.

"Go! Find your place! God bless you all!" Eleni gave the benediction. Sahle strode across the packed dirt. Rudolph came up along side him, a girl in his arms. "I have a place I assume?" he asked.

"Yes." Sahle waved him away, not looking him in the eye. He only had eyes for Livy.

She was surprised when he came to her table. Bacon bowed, and Livy quickly followed his lead. "How are you, your majesty?"

"I am well, my friend. I have came to tell you that you don't need to stay in a tent."

"Oh?" she looked uncertain. Off balance.

"I have a place near here for you. Come with me. I will show you."

"Are you bringing Mr Bacon?" she asked, looking at the old man. Bacon had been watching the exchange as if he didn't see it, but when Livy talked to him, he smiled wide. "You kids have fun without me." he said. He turned to Sahle and bowed. "Your majesty." then he walked off.

Livy looked at him. "Okay." she said breathlessly. They walked together.

She climbed into the Landrover with him. Two Mehal Sefari rode in front with the driver, another clung onto the back with his feet balanced on a steel beam welded to the car for exactly that purpose.

She seemed shy. That woke some instinct in him, to protect her, draw her closer. He embraced her, and she took a moment to accept it, leaning into his body. She felt warm. The wave of red hair beneath her hat smelled of flowers. "Thank you for the invitation, your majesty" she said. Her voice was like a squeak.

"You don't need to be in the wilderness." Sahle replied.

"I haven't been camping in a long time" she giggled, looking up at him. In the moonlight her eyes were the color of tears.

"I have a better thing for you than tent life, my friend" he said.

"You are a good friend." she said.

They came into the drive of a manse balanced on the edge of the mountain. It was in the Italian style, looking like it could be a wing of the Imperial palace. They stopped. The guard on the back hopped off and looked around nervously. Sahle was not nervous. He drank in the smell of Livy, and of eucalyptus on the mountain breeze. Beyond the manse they could see the lights of the city below.

They went inside. It was decorated with new furniture, and smelled of fresh lumber. There was a record player on a sturdy mahogany table.

"This is a beautiful place." Livy complimented. Her heels tapped against the hardwood floor.

"It's yours" Sahle said.

"What is?" she casually browsed a crate of records.

"This house. It is a gift to you."

She looked at him, slowly comprehending. "The house?"

"And the land it is on." Sahle replied, grinning.

There was a twinkle in her eye. Her shyness seemed to drip away slowly as she comprehended, looking around. What was going through her head now was a mystery to him. He wanted to know. Her mouth gaped slightly open, and she held her tongue up as if preparing to speak. "I don't know what to say." she said..

"You accept it? Surely you don't want to stay in the city."

"No. Yes. Of course I accept it. Yes! This is the nicest thing anybody has given to me."

She spread open the red curtains. The moonlight poured in, and danced on the crystal water just outside. She gasped. "There is a pool! I have not seen one in this country!"

"I know it is a feature Americans like. I requested it be put in."

"This house is new?" she went to the back door and opened it, letting in the strong smell of chlorine.

"Well, it has been redone. The pool is new." he said. She went outside. He followed.

On the deck, she kicked off her heels, showing off painted toes, a line of dust ending where the shoe had started. She looked out at the city twinkling below. The clouds were the rusty pink of an urban sky.

"This will be so good when it is hot." she said, smiling at the still water.

"Try it." Sahle suggested.

"I haven't brought a suit." she said. Then she looked at him. The excited grin fell down to a warm, slight smile. She looked back down at the water. Then she reached behind her back and unzipped her dress.

Sahle's heart pounded like a drum. In the few months after meeting Livy, he'd slept with a dozen or so women, but that hadn't meant anything. They'd been his like servants, his at the snap of a finger. But there was something else here. The other women had been the mechanical release of desires. Livy was love in the flesh revealing herself to him. She slid out of the yellow dress. The skin beneath was so white it took on the colors around it, in this case blue from the dancing water. She wore a matching set of beige undergarments, the panties coming up to her belly button. Her gaze went from him to the sparkling water as she unclasped her bra and pulled it gently away. The sight of her petite breasts made his soul jump into his throat. She reached down and pulled off her last item of clothes. The moonlight on the pool danced blue against her smooth skin. She jumped in.

Her red hair was soaked, turning auburn when her head plunged up above the surface. The rest of her body danced below the rippling water the same color as the reflected moonlight. Sahle, without realizing it, began to undress. His manhood was stiff as a rod once he was naked. She saw him and watched as he jumped in after her.

That shy look returned to her eyes. The pool was only deep enough to come up to his chest. He walked over, the water cold against his skin. He took her in his arms. His manhood pressed against her soft belly.

"You are good to me, your majesty." she said softly. He kissed her. In his mind, she was already his Queen.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Mid August: Addis Ababa
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"Yared is playing the krar, Marc is playing the cornet, Zuber is playing the drums. I am Ab and I have a piano. Tonight we play for you jazz!"

Leyla was bombarded by things new to her. The music filled the room all at once like a gunshot. It was upbeat and wild, exotic to the point of being sinister. The earthy scent of stone mixed with the smells of alcohol and body odor. The music was loud, so much she couldn't hold a train of thought. People moved onto the polished floor. Though this place was hidden, there was not much illegal about it. There was certainly nothing against the law about serving liquor in a country where every soldier carried a beaker of bright yellow tej with him on campaign. And what could be wrong with music, even something as strange as this? It was the dancing that worried her. Men grabbed hold of women and whirled them around, touching their bodies with obscene familiarity, swinging them between their legs, holding them close. They were breaking profanity laws. She was dreadfully certain of that.

Chemeda Magana led her to the dance floor, her dress brushing against the stone. And what was she to do? She followed. It was what everyone in the room was doing. Was it wrong? A public display like this, it seemed like it should be wrong. It had to be. She felt naked on the dance floor in front of everyone. He showed her how to dance like them, and she followed the best she could. She felt like everyone was watching, judging her, the whore of babylon. But they couldn't be watching. They were doing the same thing. How funny that was. How unaccountable.

She liked Chemeda. Her feelings were mixed. He was handsome in his crisp brown dress uniform, a thin mustache on his lips. She'd avoided him in public, not wanting to be lead into marriage. Her senses wanted him, but her mind didn't.

The music bounced. It was like the folksy string music played in coffee houses across the country, if that sound was given a soul and brought to life. He swung her. She felt her muscles strain as she danced faster with her handsome young officer. She could feel his strength. She wanted that. But. She couldn't. She knew she couldn't.

Could she be a woman and a man? Had her friends have been right about this? Was a career a good idea? A female Shotel?

The people in that snug jazz club did not look like criminals. They looked much like her and Chemeda. Half of the men wore officer's uniforms. Others wore western clothing. The women all looked beautiful, their hair wide and natural like hers, their dresses modest enough. This couldn't be wrong. It was exotic, exciting, a whole other world from the dusty streets outside where trucks shared the road with donkeys. That didn't mean it was wrong.

"This is fine!" Chemeda shouted to her over the swaggering music. It was half a statement, half a question. She smiled, feeling dumb, overstimulated, uncertain what to say. The room smelled like sweat, but in a good way.

There were no lyrics to the music, except for the occasional wordless shout from the musicians, which seemed unplanned, like they were letting out pent up energy building in them as they played.

This was different than the world she knew. She felt free. Wasn't that what she wanted after all?

When the dancing was done, her limbs felt tired but invigorated. She followed him to the bar. Chemeda leaned smartly against the wooden counter and looked at the tender like he was a subordinate. He appeared in total control, and she felt as if she wanted to become part of him, to experience that power of control through him.

"Two gin rickeys"

"Okay." the tender said, falling to his work behind the bar.

"I'm not sure if I want to drink." Leyla said. Hadn't she learned enough about the world tonight? She felt like such a child.

"You should try it. This is the new life, Leyla. Enjoy it."

She said nothing.

Two men and a woman came up to the bar right beside her. They seemed more at home. There was none of her anxiety in the woman's eyes. Her dress was not as modest as most, coming to a stop at her knees, and she looked at the men like she was one of their own.

"Three Djiboutis" one of the men said. Leyla wondered what was in that concoction. Would she be asked to try one too? Chemeda didn't try to make conversation. He stood, almost posing, looking important.

"I want to go to Djibouti." the woman said. Leyla had her back turned to them now, but kept listening.

"Djibouti stinks."

"I still want to go. I've heard you can have fun there."

Leyla knew Djibouti's reputation. It was a den for sailors, a place pirates could live in ease if they paid off the right people. A nest of thugs and vermin. A man she'd worked with in the propaganda office was an admirer of American detective novels, and when he excitedly explained the plot of one of them to Leyla, he'd added "Of course, if Sam Bennett took a job in Djibouti, he'd be dead in the first chapter." Such was the reputation of that place.

"I can have fun right here. Look. If the Emperor can have fun here, so can I."

"But you don't have a whore like the Emperor's ferengi." the third man added. All three chuckled to each other, as if it was an in-joke only they knew.

Leyla felt uncomfortable hearing these words. Talking about the Emperor in this manner just wasn't done. It wasn't illegal per see, but it just wasn't something people did, in the same way they didn't shit in a coffee house or blaspheme the lord. Of course, it happened, but... it wasn't done. She'd read the Kebre Negast in school. The Emperors were a root reaching down through the past into the holy days of Israel. She wasn't sure she believed the stories in that book, not really, but the office of Emperor still felt sacred.

She looked at the picture of the Emperor hanging up above the bar. He was a handsome man, a lively face, maybe a little gangling for an Amharic. He was just a man. But a man with whores? Well, she knew the stories about him. But should he be thought of so commonly?

"Here." Chemeda shoved a glass in her hand. It felt cold, and there was a slice of lime floating on top. She took a sip. The alcohol stung her senses. She thought she tasted tree mixed in with the sour citrus.

"It is good, isn't it?"

"Yes." she lied.

"We serve our country, we should have the good life." Chemeda said, "I will command men, and you can protect the capital with that trigger finger of yours."

"Maybe I will be in the field with your men."

Chemeda's eyebrows arched wide, like he was watching an opponent strike an unexpected blow and was impressed by it. "Well, all things are possible" he said once he regained his balance. He raised his glass. "To the new world!" There was a pause. "Now you touch your glass to mine." he said. She blushed, feeling like she should have known that, and she did as he asked.

He ordered more drinks, but she only accepted the one. He talked about the army. About himself mostly. Like so many young officers, he expected his career to take him to the pinnacles of society. Leyla's mind wandered. She had an interview tomorrow. She was to be assigned to a Shotel field agent for training. When she thought about it, she felt overwhelmingly intimidated, like she was looking over the edge of an immeasurable precipice knowing full well she had to leap.

"I believe the Emperor will take us to war with Egypt." Chemeda rambled, his voice slowing down and speeding up as if he no longer had control of it. "That is our ancient foe., but they aren't strong. We can conquer all the way to Jerusalem. I believe we can do this because Armenia will aid us. Did you know the Master of Drills is Armenian? They are good soldiers. We will fight with them to Jerusalem, if they join us it will be an easy thing."

Would she like the agent she was assigned to? Would he like her? Were there other women in the Shotel? Other agents? She hadn't heard of them, but perhaps they were secret. She hoped for another woman, but it seemed unreasonable to hope.

"A war will be good for me. If I become a general... well, that would be a pleasant surprise. But if I become a General, I want to be made a General on the Temple Mount. I hope the Meridazmach is there. And Ras Hassan. And Mikael Serovian. I read his biography. I want to meet him. These are big dreams, I know, but they are my dreams. I'm sure you dream about being a great Shotel."

"Wouldn't Aden be the next target, if there is a war?" she asked.

Chemeda looked stunned. He answered slowly, as if he had to pull his shattered thoughts back together. "Well, that would be for the navy. They don't need the army to hunt pirates."

"Oh, that is true."

"To our dreams!" Chemeda, recomposed, brought up his glass. Leyla met it with an untouched cocktail, but she did not bring it to her lips.

It was dark when they climbed out of the downtown basement and into an ally. The walls here were painted. On one side was a simplistic, almost cave-drawing like depiction of white and black men in military khakis stabbing black children with sharpened crosses. On the other side was an equally simplistic depiction of Hou Sai Tang, the subject obvious only because the artist had captioned it, using sunny yellow paint for his skin. He had two eyes and a thin nose, but no mouth. They exited onto the street, beneath a canopy of tangled electrical wires that buzzed and crackled in a pattern that sounded like breathing.

Addis Ababa seemed alive at night. All across Africa entire villages were already asleep. This was true of most neighborhoods in the capital too. But here there were still some trucks and people on the street. Electric lights further illuminated the blue moonlit night.

They caught a cycle rickshaw back to base. There she would drop off Chemeda. The city went by slowly.

"You don't have to go home." Chemeda said.

"What are you asking?" she turned to him, staring at him real hard this time, hoping her eyes would stop this conversation before it started.

"I'm only saying. Well. You are a modern woman. And I am a modern man. We do not want to get married, not now, am I right?"

She kept looking at him. He drew himself up like an officer in the trenches preparing himself to lead his men over the top. He continued. "Well, we are not getting married, but I am not a priest, and you are not a nun. There are things men and women are supposed to do."

"I cannot hear this." she said. She wanted to hear this. What she dreaded was facing the temptation.

"We will face dangers. We may not live."

She took a deep breath, hoping to sound exasperated. Instead she heard her breath shake. Had he heard that too?

"It is true. You should not feel ashamed."

"I am not your whore of babylon, Chemeda." she said.

"We can be married one day. But we must put it off because of our careers. Why should we punish ourselves for serving our country?"

"I don't want to hear another word." she bit her lip. They were coming up to the statue of Mikael of Wollo mounted proudly in his roundabout. She only had to stay strong a moment longer.

"Look at me, Leyla." he said. She looked. His eyes broke through her, and she felt like he could see her thoughts. It made her feel vulnerable, but it was seductively intimate, and she felt herself melting into his power. He continued. "You and I will see great things. And we will see bad things. We deserve to know the happiness of a man and a woman before that happens. You deserve it. Come with me. I want to see all of you."

She felt her body pushing her up. This was it. She'd almost made the decision to go. But her conscious required one last defense. "Chemeda, we have been happy tonight, and we have known each other like a man and a woman. Don't ruin it with this unseemly thing. Go to bed."

There was a silence. She wanted him to make one final argument, one that would win her over. Her heart pounded in the suspense. They came to a stop. He looked at her, looked down at the seat, and continued the unfair tension.

"Okay." he said. He stepped out of the cycle rickshaw and walked silently into the blue night. She watched him pass the gate, and when he was gone, she sunk into her seat and told the cyclist the address to her home.

--

She woke up early, before the sun was up. She wasn't really sure if she'd gone to sleep. The night before, and the morning yet to come, tugged at her and stretched her out so she felt more tired in the morning than she had when she came home the night before. She washed herself and put on her brown khaki uniform with its long cotton skirt. A crossed sword badge adorned her breast pocket. Her father wasn't yet awake when she left the house. The sun was still not up. There were no shadows, but it seemed like the whole earth was under a great big shadow, only the morning star visible in the new light. She walked through her neighborhood alone.

When she reached a main road, she passed a shabby police booth. The uniformed officer inside was asleep on his stool. There were few cars on the road. The smell of brewing coffee wafted from nearby corner coffee houses. She felt sick to her stomach, and passed them by as if they were garbage heaps. It was several blocks before she found transportation, reaching a bus stop where a half dozen people waited to go downtown. The number doubled before the bus arrived. It was barely large enough to fit everybody waiting, and Leyla watched it ominously as it approached. When it stopped, its shocks made a snapping sound, but the driver didn't seem fazed. The door opened and a thin layer of smoke came out. They climbed on. It smelled of frankincense, emanating from burning resin in a clay pot embedded on the dash. Room was spare, and they shared the corners of seats, stifled in each other's body heats. She felt lonely in this place. People eyed her, and she read menace in their expressions.

Downtown lay beneath the gentle rise where the Emperor's palace stood. It sat in the luxurious shade of a eucalyptus grove. Her mind went to the conversation she overheard the night before, and then to the rest of the night with Chemeda. She sighed and crossed her legs. What was the Emperor like? How would he compare to a rogue like Chemeda?

The Shotel Headquarters was a three story Italian-style building resting beneath the Imperial hill. It looked more like an embassy than a military structure. The bus stopped and she was let off along with two others who ignored her. She walked across the Headquarter's pampered grounds feeling like an imposter. It smelled of freshly cut grass. She entered the open doors, and was met by an ink-black man in the male version of her uniform.

"You don't look familiar. What are you here for?"

"You know everybody in here?" she asked, attempting a smile.

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Agent Leyla Masri. I was sent here from the Propaganda office."

The black man flipped through notes on a clipboard. He didn't look up. "Second floor, north wing. Captain Telehun Gelagel."

"How do I get there?"

"The stairs." he pointed. She nodded and continued.

The staircase was marble. Her shoes clapped loudly against the stairs. There were more people on the second floor, none of them looking at her. Apparently she'd already made it past the guard. She went down the north wing as instructed, but she felt more lost than before. The hall was wide and full of desks. The banks of desks were divided only by shelves, creating makeshift departments. Most of the people behind the desks were men, but there were a few women too, making her feel an unaccounted mixture of pride and disappointment.

"You are Leyla Masri." a man said somewhere to her right. She jumped and looked at him. He was a foot taller and a decade older than her, clean shaven, his hair short. He smiled with only one side of his mouth, but with both of his eyes.

"Who are you?"

"Come with me." he said. She followed as he lead her to an office in the corner. The door was open. Her guide barged in.

"I found your girl." the man said just as she entered.

"Who. Ah." an older man stood up. He had a closely cropped beard and a hairline receded to the middle of his scalp. "You are Leyla."

"Reporting for duty."

"Good. I am Telehun Gelagel. This is Elias Zelalem. He's one of my best."

"Ato Telehun, Ato Elias, I am happy to be working with you." she said. She felt awkward. How must she look? She was making it up as she went, not feeling in control.

"Woizerit Leyla." Elias smiled. He turned to his boss. "I have explained my reservations about your assignment, but I am told you have skills. Do you think you can translate good aim into field work? There are more skills for you to learn than just that."

"I am ready." she said sincerely. "Is there training? I need to know what happens next."

"How do you train for the real world?" Elias asked, "And that's not a rhetorical question."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"You train for the real world by being in it. You can't prepare for it. Not even in your head. The best you can do is just, do it. And that's what happens next."

"An assignment?" it was all coming at her at once.

"Yes." Elias looked back to the man behind the desk. "You want to tell her, boss?"

"Well, Woizerit Leyla." the Captain said, smiling warmly, "You are going to be stationed in Djibouti. Elias knows the mission. Learn from him."

"Djibouti?" she said, her voice sharper than she meant it to be.

"She's going to need a gun." Elias added, the corner of his mouth perked up.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Mid August: Hargeisa, Somalia
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Azima's room was austere, its walls bare, its furniture plain wood. The only colors were the rug, the pillows on her bed, the clothing laid out on a wooden stool, and her handmaids. They were clothed head to toe in red so only their ink black faces stuck out. The two of them said nothing, since their grasp on Somali was tenuous. They went about their work as if she weren't there, as if she were a statue of a piece of furniture to be decorated, covering her in rich embroidered fabric, the scarf around her head almost translucent

She didn't want to be here. Sometimes, she wished she'd been raised her father's daughter, saved from the discomfort of her unnatural life pretending to be an equal among men. Then days would come like this where she got her wish, and she felt the absence of the things she loved about that unnatural life. She longed for the independence, and to be distant from her father, the Emir Hassan al-Himyari.

She was certain she was an ugly girl. The handmaids put rings on her fingers, and a golden circlet around her head, but that seemed to make it worse. She was skinny, stringy, scars on her face that were barely visible, but visible enough. Somehow being so dressed up made her feel worse about her appearance, so much that she wondered if this was any worse than going out naked. At least in that case her unfortunate features would be competing for attention, rather than the few that were highlighted and tragically contrasted with the rich clothing she wore now.

"Pray for me." she said softly to the handmaids. They said nothing. She heard the buzz of an engine, soft and coming from outside.

She went out, into the brown halls, the two black handmaidens following behind her. Outside she heard a lute being played.

Her father was in the courtyard, entertaining a tall man in a black robe. The man wore a red turban with jewels on it, and had a close cut salt and pepper beard. She knew who he was as soon as she saw him.

"Ah, Taysir, here is my daughter!" Hassan said, motioning to Azima. She smiled politely.

"This is the son of Hassan I have heard!?" Taysir bin Faisal said, his eyes growing wide and his smile animated as if he'd just been offered the privilege to eat sweets off her naked tummy.

"Am I what you look for in a boy?" she replied.

There was a brief pause. Hassan's face didn't flinch, but Taysir looked at her inquisitively for a long moment. Then he laughed. "She has a mouth on her too! Yes! I don't feel I am talking to a girl, no, you are like talking to a man. I don't mean to offend."

"The Sultan of Muscat cannot offend so long as he is in my house." Hassan said.

"Well I am your servant. I can offend though. But you are so hospitable, I am your servant." Taysir said. He pulled a flask from his robe and took a swig. Azima's eyes met Hassan's for just a moment.

"Taysir has agreed." Hassan told his daughter.

"Oh?" she sounded. She was really surprised. So quick?

"Well, it is not difficult to agree, I want to see things happen in my lifetime." Taysir started, "And the Emperor of the Abyssinians is a weak man, isn't he? I have heard things. The American thing? Eh. He is a fool. Though I am surprised he hasn't caught you yet. You are amassing an army and your Emperor hasn't even wagged his finger?"

"They know." Hassan said simply, "I am certain of it."

"If they know, why would they not do anything?" Taysir sat down and plucked a fig from a bowl presented to him by a young male servant in harem pants.

"They have the weapons. And war has its uses, doesn't it?"

"I would have out with it. But that is why he is a bad Emperor, isn't it?"

Airplanes flew over. There were three of them in V formation. Fighters. The desert sun reflected off their hulls. On their wings were the crossed swords of Oman. "That is what they don't expect!" Taysir said.

Azima noticed they were bi-planes, their engines sounding old and choked. "I am surprised those old things still fly."

"Why would they not?" Taysir looked hurt.

"I know the Ethiopians have better. I saw them in Mogadishu."

"I have more."

"I hope."

"That mine are older are no matter I think." Taysir said, "It is the heart. That is what matters. Is there heart in Ethiopia? Under this Emperor? The believers will fight with us. And I have seen the people you've trained. I am told you have trained with the Dervish? Hassan showed me his warriors jumping from horseback onto moving automobiles. That is a feat! We have all the heart!"

"Is a good campaign ever started by disregarding your enemy?" Azima asked simply.

"Well, they have their abilities of course, but I do not think their abilities are fatal for us."

Azima sat down. Her handmaids flanked her likes guards. "I know this thing is inevitable, but could it not be delayed until a better moment."

"This thing will not be tomorrow, but we cannot wait for too long. Desta is aware of what we are doing. You know how many Shotel we have caught. He has plans. I don't know what they are..."

"Perhaps he plans to let you undo yourself." she said, "He won't have to sit up for it."

Taysir inspected her for a long moment. "Your daughter does have a mouth on her, Hassan."

"She strategizes." Hassan said. "This is what I taught her to do. She is right. We should not underestimate Desta. But being aware our enemy is capable is no reason to put everything off. We have made our own plans. It was inevitable that our enemy would be more than a pile of manure waiting for us to burn it. What happens next is we test our plans against theirs. That is inevitable. That is every war in history."

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Early August: Beijing, China
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Yaqob woke up to the sound of soft knocking on the other side of the wall. He was sprawled out, sheets wrapped around his naked torso, a book laying open on the edge of the bed. Wen Chu Ming and the Manchurian Campaign. He swung himself up and grabbed the stiff fabric hardcover, smoothing out its rumpled pages, feeling ashamed as if he'd been caught doing he shouldn't. Hou himself had gifted him this book. He closed it, making sure the pages went flat, and placed it on a nearby shelf. The shelf, and indeed most of his furniture, was of near-black ebony wood. Everything in the house had a dark hue, its colors black and dark crimson, grey stone peaking out in places. It soaked up the light like a dungeon and made him itch to go outside.

There was the knocking again. He hopped out of bed, his skin goose-pimpled in the cold air as he found a robe and threw it on. The sound again, tap tap bump. It wasn't at his door. He thought of his older sister Taytu, shot by evil men in America. Though she'd survived and was recovering in Spain, the thought of danger was no longer as far from his mind as it used to be. What should he do? Yell out? That felt foolish. The sound was too gentle for him to be scared of it. He slowly pushed the door open.

It was a woman. Not one of the Ethiopians working in the embassy, but a Chinese woman. She looked young, perhaps his age, wearing a conservative baby-blue dress. She was turned away, bent over slightly, doing something he could not see. He pushed the door open just a crack more and saw she was dusting the seat of a chair.

Well, she couldn't be that dangerous. He opened the door to greet her, but stopped when she jumped. Her face turned red and she bowed.

"So sorry." she said over and over again, holding her bow at a wobbly angle "I am sorry. I am. Accept my apologies."

"You're fine." Yaqob said, "Stand up please."

She did as requested, but she did not look at ease. Her eyes darted away from his as if she was desperately hoping to get back to work.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am Shun." she said, "The congressman hired me for you. As a gift."

"The congressman?"

"Their excellencies are... they are outside." she said.

"They?" before she could answer, Yaqob waved his hand. "I'll go out there. One moment." He went back in his room, quickly bathed himself with a sponge and a basin of water, and put on a tight-collared mandarin suit. He did not disturb the young woman as he passed through the drafty house and outside. The sunlight felt harsh on his eyes, and the wet morning air was heating up, promising a humid day. Ambassador Akale Tebebe sat in a gold-gilded kaftan robe. Across from him was a middle aged Chinese man in a mandarin suit, looking to Yaqob like all other middle aged Chinese men. His hair, so black it looked somewhat blue, receded and left behind a long forehead

"Prince! This is Congressman Deng Zhong-shan."

The congressman bowed in his seat. Yaqob smiled politely and took a chair. A servant - one of the familiar Ethiopians - served him tea.

"It is an honor to meet you of course. A real life prince! We no longer have such things in China. It is a privilege to meet one."

"Thank you." Yaqob said, "Of course, your country no longer needs such things."

"We have disposed of the tradition. Our royalty failed their duty. It was a necessary change for us. I am pleased to know Ethiopia's royal family has not failed."

Yaqob replied with a slight nod. Akale jumped in. "Mr Zhong-shan is part of the financial faction. He has connections who are interested in the development of Ethiopia."

"There's a financial faction?" Yaqob said, failing to veil his disappointment. Neither the world 'Financial' nor the word 'Faction' had a place in the Houist future he imagined.

Mr Zhong-Shan smiled. "Yes. Well, it's hard to avoid. We have to interact with the world, it's not like we can avoid that. And if our economy is going to understand the economies of our partners, well, our finances must be clearly defined. Dependable. Your country seeks loans, correct?"

"Yes." Yaqob said. He didn't know much about that, but he wanted to look confident in front of the ferengi stranger.

"Then we need financial policy."

"I understand that, but why is it a faction?"

"Well, I am a member of the committee, but the chairman of the committee is part of the Old Guard. We don't necessarily agree on all things. Much of what happens in finances appears to be bourgeoisie to the Old Guard."

"The Old Guard? You disagree with the revolutionaries?"

Mr Zhong-shan had thus-far been calm, even playful. Now he seemed rattled. His skin went blotchy as if his body were trying to hide a blush. "In small things only. Yes. Yes. This is allowed. Think of it. If we could only agree with the Old Guard in all things, why not make Hou an Emperor? Hou would not want this. Rule by the people means there will be some disagreements."

"Of course." Akale spoke. He looked directly at Zhong-Shan. "We are strangers in a strange land. Much of your world is new to us."

"Of course." Zhong-shan composed himself. "Yes, yes. Of course."

"So Jiang Fu will be expecting us tomorrow evening?" Akale said.

"He would be honored." Zhong-shan replied.

"Jiang who?" Yaqob asked.

"Jiang Fu." Akale said, "He is the man who oversaw the construction of the rail-line to..."

"Urumqi" Zhong-shan said.

"Urumqi." Akale repeated. "He might take an interest in helping us develop rails in Ethiopia, so I am told."

"It is true." Zhong-shan confirmed.

"Okay, but he just took an interest today? This is such short notice!"

"He sent invitations two weeks ago." Akale said, "I assumed you'd be interested."

"But what if I had something to do?" Yaqob protested.

"Well. Do you?" Akale asked simply.

Yaqob paused. "Well. No. Okay. We will go to this man's house."

"Very good." Zhong-shan smiled.

--

Jiang Fu was not a neighbor. After breakfast, they rode in Zhong-Shan's car eastward out of the city, toward Tianjin and the sea. The drive from Beijing to Tianjin took them past the hutongs of inner-Beijing and into the modern suburbs. Past that were waving fields of grain until they reached Tianjin. It was an odd city, its look essentially Chinese on the surface, but built over the remains of European buildings like a first coat of new paint over an old color. They slowed down as they entered the port along the river. It was not a thin snaking river like those so common in East Africa. It was big, slow moving and wide like the Nile. "We could take the ferry of course." Zhong-shan said, "But there is no need to cram in with so many people when I own a boat."

The port along the Hai river was split into sections. They were far down from the commercial section where big barges shimmered near the horizon in the mid-morning humidity. They passed by a disorderly area of tightly packed docks where wooden single-sail vessels seemed almost stacked one atop another. From here fishing boats with ribbed sails entered onto the river like bees leaving their hive. As they went further along, Yaqob saw bigger vessels. Only slightly bigger, but their section was more orderly. They turned off of the road skirting along the dike and went down to the rivers edge, parking on a fresh cement tarmac.

Zhong-shan's boat was the Shùncóng Nǚrén, a single-sail junk with ribbed sails. The sides of the boat were painted yellow.

"I've never been on a ship before." Akale said, smiling, shielding his eyes from the sun.

The sailors all seemed to be friends of Zhong-shan. When the congressmen introduced a few, it turned out they were distant relatives. The scene was perfectly picturesque, young sailors going happily about their work, the city caught in the process of modernization staring down benevolently on a river busy with activity. The breeze near the water was cool and pleasant, and it gently pressed on the sails as they entered the river traffic and went for the Bohai sea. It was slow going down the river. Yaqob watched the city give way to farmland, the farmland give way to tide-water, and tide-water to the open sea. To the east was nothing but water.

They spent the entire day on that boat. Akale did not like it, and threw up several times an hour over the side. It got so that he was only heaving. But despite Akale's sickness, the boat was designed for comfort. They had a full meal of steamed dumplings and fresh fish. The sailors talked very fast, of people he did not know, places he never heard of. The air smelled like salt and fish. The boat creaked and the sea sloshed. With the sun setting, the air was cooling down. Yaqob looked east at the thin light on the horizon, wondering how much of that light was the fleeing sun and how much was the great cities of China. The talk among the sailors turned to war. Yaqob's attention snapped back into the boat.

"There was a skirmish on the Onon river. The Siberians still fight like the Mongols."

"I heard they are hairy naked men and they ride into battle with guns they made out of scrap metal."

"Well that is ridiculous, but I know they still ride horses."

"That war will not last long unless the Japanese are involved. If the Japanese join the war, then it will be a great war."

"We will drive them to the sea again. And I do not worry about the Russians."

"My betrothed's brother is in the coast guard. He said that dead European bodies wash up on the shores of Korea with signs of weird diseases. They are told not to touch them. He said they sailed past an island of floating burnt bodies, held together by melted fat like a ghost raft. They gave it a wide berth."

"I will go to Russia if I have to. It is my duty to the revolution. But I don't want to go. I think it is too wild of a place."

"I don't see the point. How can you build communism if you can't built anything better than a log cabin?"

"To liberate them from the horsemen."

"To liberate them from the Japanese."

"I heard the Russian women grow hair in all the same places the men do."

"That is not good! The men grow hair in all their places!"

The conversation went on to women they knew, and Yaqob's mind began to wander again. When it was time, they all went into the cabin to sleep.

Dawn came. For breakfast they had leftovers of the last-night's dinner. They sailed for most of the day, the sea endless. Akale seemed better now. Yaqob was getting bored of the sea, and he wished he'd brought a book. His afro was damp from ocean spray.

Mid-day, with the sun shining directly above them in a cloudless sky, they spotted land. Yaqob watched as the thin green line slowly populated mountains and beaches. When they came close to the shore, they began to follow it, close enough that the occasional building could be seen. A tower appeared to rise from the top of one tree-covered mountain. The scene was tropical in Yaqob's mind. This was not the tropics it was true, but it was lush and lively, nothing like Ethiopia's searing desert coastal cities. They came around a bend. At first it looked to Yaqob like the mouth of a river guarded by smooth bluffs, but soon he realized it was a harbor. The tower, which had dropped behind the hills, reappeared watching over a port city.

Zhong-shan smiled brightly at Yaqob and pointed at the tower. "That is White Jade Tower. The Japanese built that to honor their dead when they took this city from Russia."

"This city used to be Russian?"

"Oh yes. They used to call this place Port Arthur. We call it Lushun."

A car was waiting for them when they docked. Yaqob could see the Russian flavor of the city. It's public buildings echoed the stark eastern-European style of Slavic kremlins, the specters of castles in their churches and public halls. The city was nestled along the harbor, beneath gently-rising mountains. Everything was alive and green with trees. They left the city and drove up a narrow cement road into the overlooking hills. Something like a mirror caught the glint of the sun on the top of a hill in front of them.

Zhong-shan pointed up at the shining point. "There it is." he said, "Our destination."

The house stood atop a wooded rise, glimmering in the sun. It was glass. Not entirely glass, but dominated by massive windows taking up entire walls, looking like a modernistic Buddhist temple with slanted roofs and earthy woodwork, the glass reflecting the setting sun.

"I warn you, do not take offense. Jiang Fu is very good at starting to talk, but he is very bad at stopping." Zhong-shan said.

"It is okay. I hope he has something interesting to say." Yaqob replied.

They stopped in a gravel drive. There was enough shade beneath the trees that they could see through the windows, but Yaqob tried not to, afraid of being rude. They walked up to the door where they were greeted by a servant woman dressed in all white. Upon entering, the wooden floor creaked, and the servant led them into another room.

It was sparsely furnished, only tables and wooden chairs, but the walls were absolutely covered, mostly in maps. On one wall hung a massive fur blanket. Yaqob approached it and petted it like a cat. The fur was smooth, but course.

"Like it? Mm?" An old fat man with a bulldog face croaked in the corner. He made a sound like he was clearing his throat, but he seemed to wield it as a kind of punctuation mark, meaning whatever tone he put into it.

"It is interesting. Is this some kind of buffalo hair?"

"Mm. That is a ten thousand woman flag. It's women's pubic hair."

Yaqob withdrew his hand.

"Yes. Mm. The Boxers carried it into battle. They believed that the magic in this flag would make them bullet proof. Mm. I suppose their wives and sisters and mothers were happy to let their genitals go cold if it kept the men alive."

"It didn't work?"

"Well of course it didn't work! If women's pubic hair could stop a thirty-forty krag I think body armor would look a bit different nowadays, wouldn't it? Mm! They got gunned down in the millions."

"Mr Fu, this is Yaqob Yohannes, the Prince of Ethiopia." Zhong-shan said, somewhat nervously.

"Yeh, Mm, I saw that you were a negro." the old man stood up. Yaqob, towering above every one of the Chinese he'd met so far, was especially aware of his height as Jiang Fu hobbled toward him. If he were to stack one Jiang Fu atop another, he wasn't sure the top one would even reach his chin. "An American sailor told me you have to watch out for negroes because they are such big animals they can maul anything they want to. You are a big thing, Mm, but I'm not sure you have much mauling in you."

"I've never mauled anyone." Yaqob said.

"Yeh. Mm. You got a place for superstition in your mind?"

"What?"

"Thinking the pubic hair flag could stop bullets?"

"Ah, no."

"Mm. Good. I wasn't sure if your race had any sense. I've been looking over your maps. You think building a railroad in Ethiopia is a sensible idea?"

"I don't know." Yaqob admitted.

Akale spoke up, "Why would it not be? Is Ethiopia worse than any other country?"

Jiang Fu seemed to swing around quickly despite his age, facing the other man. "Here. Mm. Here's the thing. I don't put much stock in the idea that one group of people is all that much more special than the others. Mm. China built the greatest civilization in the world and just half a century ago our people were waving pubic hair in the streets trying to stop bullets. I can look at a piece of ground and tell you exactly how the people there are going to do. Any idiot race could make an Empire in China, or in America. It's communication. Transportation. Mm! That's what matters. Your country is all mountains. Mm! Good for goats! Bad for transportation."

"But what should we do?" Yaqob asked.

"Fly." Jiang Fu said, waving a liver-spotted hand.

Yaqob wanted to ask more, but dumplings were brought out, and Jiang Fu hobbled toward them like a starved basset hound. Yaqob stared out the window at Lushun in the red light of the setting sun.

"I built it. Mm. Mm." Jiang Fu was choking down a dumpling like a snake struggling with a mouse.

"What?"

"This house. Mm. My friends said I am stupid. People are going to see in. See what I do."

"It's not easy to see in. The sun blocks it out." Yaqob assured.

"Mm. What am I doing in here! I don't murder my servants! I don't hide skeletons. What am I hiding? I don't sit around the front room naked. Mm. And so what if I did? I'm not a blushing maiden. If you look into this house and see me naked, that's your problem. And if you keep looking? Why would you do that? Do you stare at toads? Mm!"

Yaqob said nothing, uncertain if he was getting a rant or a lecture.

"Mm! Come on. Eat."

They all sat down, chewing on the fishy tasting dumplings. Congressman Zhong-shan spoke up. "These men came here because they wanted to know about how we may help them develop their rail."

"Mm. This will be harder than Urumqi. That was desert. This is mountains. I can do it. It will cost a lot. Oh. You wanted it built here they told me?" he pointed to a map as he sucked the guts out of a dumpling. Yaqob looked. He was pointing to the south of Ethiopia.

"Yes." Akale said.

"There aren't many towns there. Does anybody live there besides, Mm, jungle pygmies?"

"This is the coffee growing region."

"Oh. That's important. So you want to ship coffee then? That doesn't have to be as smooth of a line."

"So you can do it?" Akale asked.

"Mm. That's up to the government. I'm not a congressman."

"I will begin work." Zhong-shan said.

"During a war? Mm. Hou is a practical man. I don't think he would agree."

"We'll show him why he should agree." Zhong-shan said.

"Mm. Show him. Mm! He'll show you! I keep telling your friends, I know that you have disagreements with the Old Guard, and that's fair enough, those communists are all tea and roses. But Hou? He is very practical. Mm! I'm not a communist. I'm not a capitalist. I am practical, and I can see practical."

Yaqob felt some sort of oddly placed pride swell up in his breast. This was exactly the sentiments he felt about Hou and his communist project.

Jiang Fu continued. "I think it's good that Wen Chu Ming died. Don't tell Hou that. Mm! Never tell Hou that, don't tell him I said it. Mm! But Wen Chu Ming was an idealist. I think. I never met him. Well, Hou lives in the real world. Remember the Tenth Anniversary celebration? Of the end of the revolution?"

"Oh." Zhong-shan said, sounding like he'd been kicked in the gut.

"I don't think the old man knew it, or maybe he just let them have their fun, but the committee for the celebration put together all these theatrics! They had a dozen orchestras, and built this massive set with this big dragon, being held up by a bunch of ten-foot workers, or maybe they were giving it a belly rub. Mm. I dunno. The thing was ridiculous! Then it comes time, and it's night, and all the orchestras are playing together. Then they stop. Hou comes out of the dragon's mouth to make a speech. Only, he doesn't do it puffed up or anything like they expected! He comes out so meek. I remember him having a cane. Mm. I don't think he had a cane, but I remember him. Mm. Having a cane. He looked like someone's grandpa was lost behind the set! You could have heard a stick drop in the crowd. Mm. I think I heard his cane. Did he have a cane? Well, he gave his speech, and it was so casual. Practical."

"He did not have a cane. The Chairman is in good health." Zhong-shan corrected.

"I like that man. The communists come up with ridiculous things. The leftists. They say. Mm. 'We can teach the peasants to make steel when they are not farming.' and Hou says, 'No, there is no reason for that, what is the purpose? Let them farm so we can eat.' Mm. I don't want to know what will happen to China after that man is gone."

"The revolution will carry us forward." Zhong-shan said dully.

"Right. Mm."

"You said something about flying earlier." Yaqob said, "That Ethiopians should fly instead of build railroads."

"Mm. Yes. Airplanes, airships. That might be less expensive, at least for a while. Mm. Here, think of it, you can build your roads and your railroads slowly over time, a little here and a little there. But in the mean time, train pilots, buy aircraft. The future is in the air."

"Is it?"

"It's faster. Mm. The future is in rockets. Space! Think of it. How quick might you get coffee to market with rockets? It's expensive now, but when it is as cheap as a donkey and a cart, Mm! That's the future. The future might be good to Africa. I can tell by a piece of land how good their people will do. Africa is a wilderness. All jungle and deserts and mountains."

"We still want to try with the railroads." Akale said.

"Mm." Jiang Fu nodded somberly, "Yes. I will see what I can do, when I am given permission to work."

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

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Early August: South of Fort Portal, Swahili People's Republic
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"They sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes, and they pant after the dust of the earth on the heads of the poor."

Worldly education was brought to the deep parts of Africa by missionaries. They tacked the knowledge of their civilization on the word of God, so that Christianity brought with it instructions on the ways men and women are to behave, the ways people should dress, and work, and pray. They brought the ideas of nationalism, of democracy, and of socialism. The revolutions that convulsed East Africa were midwifed by men with crosses around their necks and bibles in their hands.

Marcel Hondo-Demissie thought about this, sitting in the canvas-covered bed of an old truck. They bumped down a rutted trail cut through the grassland beneath the shadows of the Rwenzori mountains. He was surrounded by his fellow Watu wa Uhuru, sitting with knees folded up, clutching their guns to their bodies as if the weather-worn rifles were their children. So much had been brought by Christianity. How could the Freedom Army of God claim sole right to interpret God's will, and administer it by the edge of a machete? The massacres perpetrated in the north chilled Marcel when he heard of them. But didn't he know they would happen? He'd been hesitant to make a deal with that particular devil, and he'd been hesitant for a reason. African history, like the history of the rest the world, was littered with barbarian tribes. That was to say warrior tribes: people who didn't define themselves through the functions of civil society, but by their sheer strength, focusing their efforts on physical power, and unleashing that power in ways urban civilization found destructive. Shaka Zulu was the spiritual cousin of Attila the Hun. And who were those first Anglo-Saxons, landing on the shore of Roman Britain, but the cousins of the Bantu people who did the same thing to much of Africa, steel sword replaced with iron spear, wooden buckler replaced with hide shield. The Freedom Army of God were wrought in that same image.

Had he unleashed them? Was he to blame? Or was this in their make-up, they a human virus, uncontrolled and uncontrollable? Could he blame himself anymore than the Romans who first paid tribute to Attila might be blamed for his onslaught?

There was light conversation between the hunters. The Force Socialiste wore their tattered blues, while the rest of the men wore casual clothes, shirts and trousers. Few men wore shoes. It was not unusual for their leader to share the back of the truck with them, and none of them reacted to his presence. Whenever he could, he killed the mystique of authority, introducing his Watu wa Uhuru to a classless way of life.

Blue clouds prophetic of storms hung over the mountains to the west. Those were the mountains of the moon, a place known to the ancient Europeans as the source of the Nile. So close to the plains, they were green and climbing with tropical vegetation. Further up and beyond the sight of the hunting party, the mountains were covered in snow as deep as the European alps, creating the barrier that divided the Swahili east front the Belgian Congo.

The truck stopped. They were near the last place where elephants had been spotted. Here the landscape forced them to go on foot. They had one truck, and it was their plan to load it with ivory. He would have brought more if fuel wasn't so dear, but resources had to be saved. The truck was parked in a grove behind a thick mango tree. They marched into the hills.

Would this world last? An anarchist paradise constructed from the naked will of the people? Grace was left behind in Fort Portal, managing the hospital and aiding with the affairs of the people there. It was too easy to imagine the Freedom Army of God burning the town and murdering its people. Murdering her. They were creating a new world, but could it survive the old one?

Of course, Christianity didn't bring socialism whole-clothe. Africa was not a tabula-rasa. Socialism had its own natural logic in a world so tightly tribal, where it was often logical to assign goods according to their use rather than a tight system of property. But property hadn't been new either. Like so much of the world outside of Europe, the east African plateau hosted a long and storied history largely ignored by outsiders. The Empire of the Moon once ruled along the lake-shores, spreading their influence by the leaf-edged spear. Later it was the Buganda around whose cane-fence compounds arose cities, host to thousands of long war canoes, watched over by warrior-magnates beneath who's fences flowed the blood of children sacrificed to the world of magic. They knew their own property in this way, their compounds an iron-age cousin of English estates, the children beneath the blade of the witch-doctor kin to the children mangled underneath the looms of Lancashire. They knew socialism in the tight relations of the village tribe. They knew it in the way rural farmers knew better how to handle their own crops than urbane kings. It was this natural common sense, unattached to the superstitious logic of the west that said the mangled child beneath the loom was necessary for progress, that'd allowed communism to take root here. Marx wasn't leading the way, or blazing new trails. The people were. They didn't need to be taught. They knew. When the priests came, they gave Africa the vocabulary of the West. Words rule the world. What seemed almost innate became revolutionary by their power.

The storm winds came down from the mountains and made the tall grass hiss. The air was full of power and change. The wind in their ears sometimes created illusions of thunder, and made them wonder if they should take shelter. They climbed up a hill passed a wide umbrella tree. Though it was mid-day, the shadows beneath the tree were as dark as night.

They climbed up and down the green piedmont. This was a tropical vision of Europe beneath the alps, green rolling hills, mountains in the distance. They went up and down and up and down until their feet hurt. This would be good land to hunt by horse. If it wasn't for the Tsetse fly, they probably would have. As it was, European livestock could not live in this part of the world, not for long anyways, and horses weren't viable. A number of horses had been sold across the lake to the anarchists a year before. They were all dead now.

When the rain came, they camped in a grove of trees, using thick canvas tarps as large tents. They lit fires in the dry places beneath a dripping umbrella tree. Thunder rolled in the distance, and rain danced on the leaves. The hunters sang a song and ate salted fish. Marcel used a skinning knife to cut open a mango. A rogue drop fell from the canopy above and ran down his knife like a tear.

"You have been quiet today." said Achille Ngongo. Achille was his second in command in the old Force Socialiste. He held his position by simple fact he was still alive and thriving after so many of their comrades had been lost.

"I have been thinking." Marcel said.

"Do you worry? Is there something I should know?"

"You know what I know." Both men leaned against the tree and ate. Achille looked at Marcel. Marcel looked at his hunters.

"Our position is good." Achille said, "The other groups fight between each other. You have made a wall out of your own enemies. This is good work, like you always do."

"What is good work?" Marcel looked at Achille. He looked deeply into his old friend, hoping for answers.

Achille returned the look. "It is work that advances our cause, or protects it. We are in a better place now than we were a month ago because you have made the decision you have."

"That's effective in the moment, but is it good?" Marcel returned, "If I were to burn down a village of my enemy, from a statistical perspective I would be doing good. But what would the other villages think? If I burn down two villages, I might look better to the mathematician, but what would be my reputation?"

"What have you done wrong? You have burned no villages."

"I don't know." Marcel looked west at the dark clouds above the mountains. "That's what I am thinking about."

When it was too dark to see, they crawled into their make-shift tents and slept. Marcel stared out into the rainy darkness for a long while, his mind keeping him awake with possibilities. He did not notice himself fall sleep.

When they woke up they were damp with dew and dripping rain. It was a cool morning, but the wet air threatened choking tropical humidity when the sun came out. They got moving, looking for signs of elephants.

Two hours after waking they found their quarry trumpeting in a meadow. There were a number of elephants bathing in the mud, making sounds like groaning trees. The hunters with the biggest caliber guns took positions on a hill. They took out two bulls, three females, and a calf, the rest bellowing like they themselves were dying, running to a nearby forest for cover. The land to the south was covered in a wide forest, an outcrop of jungle like that in the Congo, the sort of land the Force Socialiste had fled out of many years before.

They went down to half-dozen fallen elephants. Half of the men went at them with saws, removing the precious ivory. The other men watched the forest in case the others returned. Elephants are unpredictable like humans. There was still the possibility of a rampage. Of revenge.

Marcel looked down regretfully at the corpse of a calf. A shot had went low and struck it in the neck. It's eyes were glazed dead, but it still wore the playful smile so common in young elephants. A shout brought Marcel out of his trance. He looked up and saw that all of his men were looking in one direction.

Something moved in the forest, not large enough to be elephants. The men pulled up their guns. Marcel imagined warriors of the Freedom Army of God. But would they be so far south? Perhaps they were monkeys? Something was moving in there though, and more than one something.

A man walked out. He was less than five feet tall, wearing nothing but a grass skirt. His skin was leathery. He held an iron-tipped spear, but uncertainly. The pygmies knew what guns were, and what they were capable of.

A whole band came out speaking in a language Marcel didn't know. Achille did know it though, and he spoke with the leader of the band. They were hunters too, but their luck was bad. Could they have what the other men didn't use? Achille translated this question to Marcel.

"If they will carry the ivory to our trucks, they can have what is left. Does this sound right?" he posed the idea to the other hunters. Some assented. Most ignored him. Achille nodded and translated this back to the pygmy. They were elated by the idea. All this meat for a little work? They smiled, and nodded, and made agreeable sounds. One of their own ran back into the bush to find men for the elephants. The rest went about their work.

They hefted the blood-spattered tusks over their shoulders, muscles working like cords as they moved, carrying them with what seemed to Marcel like joy. Simple joy. That simplicity seemed so good and so useful that Marcel made a mental note of how to cultivate it in the movement.

The grass was wet and heavy, the ground muddy beneath their steps. The pygmies did not seem to tire. In the end, they camped beneath the same tree, the ashes of their campfire turned to a goop of charcoal mud, the impressions from where they'd slept still visible. Here they fell into the same patterns. The pygmies kept to themselves.

"What a life to live." Achille said, "To be naked in the jungle. To live on bush meat and fruit. I know they do not live long. There is no medicine. And look how old they seem to be. Even the young ones. Their skin is like shit that had dried out in the sun!"

"I would not judge them." Marcel said. "Why would they feel the absence of what they do not know?"

"They must know what they miss when they see us."

"They can see us, but I do not know that they envy us. Do you envy demons?"

"Demons." Achille scoffed, screwing up his face so that Marcel wondered if he had offended him. "That's not a fair comparison."

"Demons live forever. They do not worry about wants. I suppose if demons live for whatever mischief they cause, then they have desires and fulfill them. But you would not want to be one. I wouldn't want to be one. I would miss the sunlight. I would miss my habits. I would miss love. Ours friends have their own world. It might not be as comfortable as ours, but they wouldn't know what to do without it."

Achille looked at the small men. This time his gaze was far off. Thoughtful. "I don't envy them though."

"I wouldn't expect you to." Marcel said, "They have their world and we have ours. I cannot say which one is better or worse because I cannot feel all things. I only know one thing."

Achille looked at Marcel with an expression of expectancy, but he didn't say a word.

Marcel spoke. "I want to live as Marcel."

"I am glad you have that." Achille smiled.