Free Heart of Light by Sarah A. Hoyt Page B

quite recall.
    But no matter how powerful he might be, she was Masai and would not be intimidated.
    He let her into a small, shabby living room, furnished in nondescript British furniture.
    “Forgive my suspicions,” he said, unexpectedly polite. He closed the door behind her and refastened his sleeve. “But we're under attack and we don't know by whom. That force that disturbed our mind communications has disturbed all other mind links with our brethren throughout Africa. It sometimes seems to shut them down altogether. And many of our men have been found dead—stabbed many times through the heart, or consumed in a great magical fire.”
    “I tried to contact the Hyena Men from London,” she said, and set her face in the stern disapproval that had been known to send young Masai children running for cover. “And no one answered me. My messages were blocked.”
    The young man sighed. “As I said.” He walked up to the fireplace and leaned on the mantel, like a warrior of the Masai might lean against a tree. It was an incongruous sight in this place that might have been the living room of the head servant at the club.
    There was a shabby carpet on the floor, and upon it a dining room set, its varnish coat blistered and peeling. Probably bought second- or thirdhand from some European expatriate about to return home. A sofa took up the corner, and tattered red velvet showed around the corners of a colorful shawl draped over it.
    The fireplace was swept, and from the lingering smell of char and old grease around it, one could tell it had been used for cooking. On the mantel rested a strange melange of curios, laying on their sides, none of them all that decorative. A powerstick, Martini-Henry brand—polished mahogany—favored by English hunters; the power mace of a Xhosa chieftain, a Zulu assegai.
    All of this appeared only dimly in the pervading twilight within the room. The only light came from windows placed high up on the walls, and cut in narrow slits as was normal in Egypt. Magelights and an oil lamp rested upon the scarred table, but Kitwana made no move to turn any of them on. Nor did he invite Nassira to sit. Instead, as she stepped forward, he moved away from the fireplace and walked backwards in front of her, barring her way to the narrow little stairway that presumably led into the bowels of the house. Despite his English suit, his posture was so warriorlike that Nassira could practically see the muscles on his broad chest as he threw back his head and looked down at her. “These are dangerous things to talk of in the street.”
    Nassira sighed. She'd joined the Hyena Men at fifteen, while staying at the Maniata—the warrior camp—of the warriors of her generation. For the next three years, she'd served the Hyenna Men by helping recruit members among her peers. Though there were many other girls there, the lovers and companions of the warriors, Nassira had found that most of her friends were the warriors themselves. And not only friends in the sexual way, though she'd enjoyed her trysts and liaisons. But she could also talk with these virile warriors and hold her own in their conversations.
    Through these male friends, she'd become intimately acquainted with the male predilection for rules and codes, or secret passwords and hidden gestures. Though she understood that the Hyena Men were a secret society, and that the Europeans would crush them if they could, she'd always wondered if most of the games around it weren't just a reflection of that male love for secrecy and rules.
    Right then she had no patience for it. “It is indeed dangerous to broadcast our affiliation,” she said. “But it is more dangerous, and far more stupid, to block transmissions from the member you sent to London to spy on the Englishmen. I have important news to tell you. And I couldn't get it to you in time, because the transmissions were blocked. Not just interfered with by this enemy you speak of. Blocked. At this end.” She