[Ealasaid]

JAMILAH & BRIELLAH

Jamilah's eyes scanned the face of her friend. "Is there a leader among your young ones? Does some voice speak to them?"

Briellah's face darkened. She had heard something along those lines from her husband. Yes... the boy who was to be executed. She nodded gravely. "They had a leader, a boy from the Rain clan. His name was Fouad. They say he heard a voice in a stone that told him things, told him what to do. We thought it was a kind of madness that took him, that is until the other children and young people began to follow him." She raised her intricately tattooed hands in despair. "The boy killed his cousin in cold blood, not three nights past. They will execute him today."

She glanced out the opening of the tent at the bright sunlight. Was it yet noon? If so, the boy was already dead. "My husband believes there will be violence as a result. The young ones already wear their weapons already like a challenge. They are like dry tinder. All they need is a spark to set them into flame."

Deeply troubled, Jamilah nodded. A spark like Jasara, perhaps?

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CHANI

Finding herself securely bound to the tree in the camp of the young ones of the Baobab tribe, Chani looked around herself with wide eyes. Perhaps Shushila had not been such a goose after all to have been afraid of these people. For the first time, Chani feared for her life. The tall girl, Jasara, she thought she had heard the others call her, had actually spit on her as she passed. Why they had not killed her already, she was not sure, but she had a feeling that unless she managed to find a way to escape, she would never have to worry again about her unwanted marriage. She would not be alive. Her captors had crammed an old glove in her mouth to keep her from screaming or calling out, and it tasted like salt and old sweat. She worked it around between her teeth and, finally, managed to spit it out, but she did not speak or even make a sound. Bound as she was, that would be the quickest way to get the nasty thing pushed right back in.

Blindly, she tested the rope that bound her wrists with her fingers. The knot was tight, but the woven fiber of the rope itself seemed loose in one place. Perhaps if she picked at the fibers, she could work her way through it. She was lucky... the weaving was not the work of an expert hand. Careful not to move a muscle other than those of her dextrous fingers, she watched the activities of the camp unfold before her. The children seemed surprisingly well-organized. Having been divided into groups, some worked at setting up the camp, while others prepared food for the camp's midday meal. The rest of them, to Chani's horror, worked at their skills with weapons, with a special emphasis, she noticed, on the kill. Behind her, the tips of her fingers had already grown raw from the roughness of the rope. Soon, they would begin to bleed, but still she worked stubbornly away at the fibers.

Near her, a young girl of about ten, tended one of the cooking fires. Chani noticed that every now and again the girl would toss her a glance over her shoulder, her expression one of both nervousness and sympathy. Chani decided to press her luck and speak to the girl.

"What is your name?" she asked softly.

The girl looked up quickly, alarm in her face. "You mustn't speak!" she whispered. "Jasara will hear you."

Ignoring the girl's warning, Chani tilted her head in the direction of the tall girl who had spit on her dress. "Is that Jasara?" she asked. "Is she your leader?"

Wide-eyed, the girl nodded. "She is the voice of the Eye."

Inwardly, Chani frowned. The Eye. Fouad, before he had stabbed his cousin, had spoken to her once of a lidless eye in the North country, one that possessed great power and would foment great change, change that would wash in on a current of blood. She had laughed it off at the time, thinking Fouad had gone a bit loopy from the heat, but to hear that the same influence had seized control of the Baobab young, sent a chill down her spine. Knitting her brows, Chani tried to recall the rest of the conversation. He had said much, but she remembered clearly that Fouad had also told her that the day of the Elders was over. The young would decide the way of the future. Thinking of Yusef, Chani suddenly smiled at the girl.

"I know of the Eye," she said quietly, a new light glittering behind her dark eyes. "My good friend Fouad told me of its power. Tell your Jasara that I wish to join your band. Tell her that I have skill with a sword."

The girl got up from her crouch before the fire and stood for a moment before Chani, as though trying to decide whether or not to believe her.