The Great Square

At dawn, the drums woke Kandara.

Not one drum. Not ten. All of them.

From the rooftops of the lower town to the hills of the great families, the same beat rolled from courtyard to courtyard: it was the day of the Great Festival of Masks, the biggest feast of the year.

And the whole city was walking toward the same place: the House of the Ancestors.

It was the largest building in Kandara — an immense hall with carved pillars, where generations had danced, judged and crowned. That morning, it suddenly seemed too small.

Thousands were crushed inside. Children climbed onto their fathers' shoulders. Young men perched on the bases of the statues. Latecomers hung from the windows to glimpse something — anything.

At the far end of the hall, a stage was waiting.

And near that stage, a young man in a carefully ironed but threadbare boubou clutched a satchel full of pages.

His name was Madi.

Storyteller. Author. Unknown.

What was to be presented on that stage was his story. Months of work, whole nights, and everything that remained of his hope for a better life.

— Today, he murmured, Kandara will finally hear my story.

But Kandara, for the moment, was listening to nothing.

The crowd found fun in everything: a ridiculous hat, a jostled merchant, a student hurling jokes from the top of a pillar. Every minute of waiting made the hall louder, more mocking.

Because great guests were expected too.

The High Counselor, people said. And a delegation from another great city, come to speak of alliances. Important people.

Late people.

— The story! shouted some.

— The drums! shouted others.

— The masks! howled the rest.

Madi watched that human tide and felt his heart tighten.

He had imagined an audience hanging on his words.

He was discovering a storm.

The sun climbed. Nothing had begun, and the hall was growling.

So Madi made the greatest decision of his day.

Too bad for the dignitaries.

The show was about to begin.

He did not know it yet, but behind the great doors of the House of the Ancestors, an unknown destiny was already waiting.