Page 99 - Microsoft Word - FANG EMPIRE - NOVEL.docx

“Ale has made us honest. So let us raise our cups to our prince!” said Cane.

The men thrust their cups into the air.

“To the prince!” Cane said.

“To the prince!” said the men.

“To the queen!” Daka said.

“To the queen!” said the men.

They all guzzled until the ale gushed down their chins.

“Sing a song, Zuba of Zanzibar,” said Raki.

“A song, why me, I sing not.”

“I didn’t say you sang well.”

“It is the ale that can sing not thee,” said Daka.

They all laughed and Zuba began to sing a tall tale of misadventure. The men joined in,

and their made up lyrics mingled into meaningless revelry. Yet somehow, a dose of

meaninglessness was just what the night, the dark alchemist, prescribed to lift the spirits of these

exiled expatriates, whose present could not have been foretold and whose future was yet to be

written. Sooth pondered their discourse and their song then walked away. He knew how they felt.

Queen GoGo stood alone while the others feasted and celebrated, her shawl blowing in the

wind as she looked toward her beloved Timbuktu. The disgrace of defeat and the betrayal of her

king never left her heart. Then suddenly, she saw something in the distance, in the Sahara, under

the light of the moon, something miraculous.

“Look!” she shouted.

Everyone stopped and rushed over.

“Caravans from Marrakesh,” she said.