Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Dark Star Trilogy)

NINE

But everybody knows of your mad King, inquisitor. I say better a mad king than a weak one, and better a weak king than a bad one. What is evil anyway, a sad soul infected with devils who take his will, or a man thinking that of all his mother’s children he loves himself the best? You wish to know how I’ve come by two eyes when I just said I lost one. Here I thought your ears would have been pricked by our glorious Kwash Dara entering the story.

Do you know Bunshi? She never lies, but her truth is as slippery as her skin, and she twists it, shapes it, and lines it up straight beside you, like a snake does when she decides it is you she should eat. To tell true, I did not believe that the King had an elder’s family murdered. I wanted to go back to my room and ask the innkeeper if she had ever heard of the Night of the Skulls, and what happened to Basu Fumanguru, but I still owed her rent and, as I said, she had way too many notions on how I could pay other than in coin.

And yet what Bunshi said about the King lined up with the little I knew, and heard. That he increased taxes on both the local and the foreign, on sorghum and millet and the transport of gold, tripled the tax on ivory, but also of the import of cotton, silk, glass, and instruments of science and mathematics. Even the horse lords he taxed for every sixth horse, and hay came at a cost. But it was the aieyori, the land tax, that made men grimace and women fret. Not because it would be high, for it always was. But because these northern kings have a way that never changes, where each decision tells the keen observer what decision will come next. A king used an aieyori for only one reason, and that is to pay for war. Things that seem like water and oil were in truth something that was a mix of the two. The King demanding a war tax, in truth a tax to pay for mercenaries, and his chief opponent, maybe even enemy, the one who could turn the will of the people against him, now dead. Killed three years ago and vanished perhaps from the books of men. Certainly no griot have sung of the Night of the Skulls.

You look at me as if I know the answer to the question you have yet to ask. Why would our King want war, especially when it is your own, the shit eater of the South, who last started it? A smarter man could answer that question. Listen to me now.

That morning, after Bunshi left, I set out on my own, to the northwest of the third wall. I did not tell the Leopard. When I was walking away, the sun was just rising, and I saw Fumeli sitting in the window. I neither knew nor cared if he saw me. In the northwest slept many elders, and I was looking for one I knew. Belekun the Big. These elders were fond of describing themselves as if locked out of their own joke. There was Adagagi the Wise, whose stupidity was profound, and Amaki the Slippery, but who knew what that meant? Belekun the Big stood so tall that he lowered his head before walking through every door, though to tell truth, the doors were high enough. His hair was white and grained, and stiff like a head plate, with small flowers he liked to wear on top. He came to me three years ago, saying, Tracker, I have a girl you must find for me. She has stolen much coin from the elders’ treasury, after we showed her kindness by taking her in one rainy night. I knew he lied, and not because it had not rained in Malakal for nearly a year. I knew of the elders’ ways with young girls before Bunshi told me. I found the girl in a hut near the Red Lake, and told her to move to one of the cities of the midlands with no allegiance to North or South, maybe Mitu or Dolingo, where the order of elders had no eyes in the street. Then I went back to Belekun the Big and told him that hyenas got to the girl, and vultures left only this bone, an ape’s leg bone I threw at him. He leapt out of the way like a dancing girl.

So. I remembered where he lived. He tried to hide that he was annoyed to see me, but I saw the change in his face, quick as a blink, before he smiled.

“Day has not yet decided what kind of day it seeks to be, but here is the Tracker, who has decided to come to my house. As it is, as it should be, as it—”

“Save the greeting for a more worthy guest, Belekun.”

“We will have manners, boy bitch. I have not yet decided if I should let you pass this door.”

“Good thing I won’t bother to wait,” I said, and walked past him.

“Your nose leads you to my house this morning, what a thing. Just another way you were always more like a dog than a man. Don’t sit your smelly self on my good rugs and rub your stinking skin on it and—milk a god’s nipple and what evil is that in your eye?”

“You talk too much, Belekun the Big.”

Belekun the Big was indeed large, with a massive waist and flabby thighs, but very thin calves. This too was known of him: Violence, the hint of it, the talk of it, even the slightest flash of rancor made him flush. He almost refused to pay me when I came back without a living girl, but did so when I grabbed those little balls through his robes and pressed my blade against them until he promised me triple. This made him a master of double-talk; my guess was it made him think himself not responsible for whatever nasty business he paid people to do. The King, it has been said, has no eye for riches, something the elders more than made up for. In Belekun’s welcome room he kept three chairs with backs that looked like thrones, cushions of every pattern and stripe, and rugs in all the colours of the rain serpent, with green walls covered in patterns and marks and columns that went all the way to the ceiling. Belekun dressed himself like his walls, in a dark green and shiny agbada outer robe with a white pattern on the chest that looked like a lion. He wore nothing underneath, for I smelled his ass sweat on the seat of his robes. He wore beaded sandals on his feet. Belekun threw himself down on some cushions and rugs, waking up a pink dust. He still did not invite me to sit. Laid out on a plate beside him were goat cheese and miracle berry, and a brass goblet.

“You truly are a hound now.”

He chuckled, then laughed, then laughed into a brutal cough.

“Have you had miracle berry before lime wine? It makes the whole thing so sweet, it is as if a flower virgin spurted in your mouth,” Belekun said.

“Tell me about your brass goblet. Not from Malakal?”

He licked his lips. Belekun the Big was a performer, and this show was for me.

“Of course not, little Tracker. Malakal went from stone to iron. No time for the fineries of brass. The chairs are from lands above the sand sea. And those drapes, only precious silks bought from eastern light traders. I am not confessing to you, but they cost me as much as two beautiful slave boys,” he said.

“Your beautiful boys who didn’t know they were slaves before you sold them.”

He frowned. Somebody once warned me about loving to grab fruit low to the ground. He wiped his hand on the robe. Shiny, but not silk, for were it silk he would have told me.

“I seek news of one of you, Basu Fumanguru,” I said.

“News of the elders be only for the gods. What be they to you that you should know? Fumanguru is—”

“Fumanguru is? I heard he was.”

“News of the elders be only for the gods.”

“Well you need to tell the gods he is dead, for news on the drum did not reach the sky. You, though, Belekun …”

“Who seeks to know of Fumanguru? Not you, I remember you as just a carrier.”

“I think you remember more than that, Belekun the Big,” I said, and brushed my bulge on the way to grabbing my bracelet.

“Who is it that will know of Fumanguru?”

“Relations near the city. It seems he has some. They will hear what became of him.”

“Oh? Family? Farmer folk?”

“Yes, they are folk.”

He looked up at me, his left eyebrow raised too high, goat cheese lodged in the corner of his mouth.

“Where is this family?”

“They are where they should be. Where they have always been.”

“Which is?”

“Surely you know, Belekun.”

“Farming lands are to the west, not Uwomowomowomowo, for there are too many bandits. Do they farm the slopes?”

“What is their livelihood to you, elder?”

“I only ask so that we may send them tribute.”

“So he is dead.”

“I never said he was alive. I said he is. We are all is, in the plan of the gods, Tracker. Death is neither end nor beginning, nor is it even the first death. I forget which gods you believe in.”

“Because I don’t believe in any, elder. But I will send them your very best wishes. Meanwhile they wish for answers. Buried? Burned? Where is he and his family?”

“With the ancestors. We should all share their good fate. That is not what you wish to know. But yes, all of them, dead. Yes they are.”

He bit into some more cheese and some miracle fruit.

“This cheese and miracle fruit, Tracker, it is like sucking a goat’s teat and sweet spices come out.”

“All of them are dead? How did this happen, and why do people not know?”

“Blood plague, but the people do know. After all, it was Fumanguru who angered the Bisimbi in some way—he must have, yes he did, of course he did—and they cursed him with infectious disease. Oh we found the source, who was also already dead, but nobody goes near the house for fear of the spirits of disease—they walk on air, you know. Yes they do, of course they do. How could we have told the city that their beloved elder or anyone died of blood plague? Panic in the streets! Women knocking down and trampling their own babies just to get out of the city. No, no, no, it was the wisdom of the gods. Besides, no one else had contracted the plague.”

“Or the death, it seems.”

“It seems. But what is this? Elders have no obligation to speak of the fate of elders. Not even to family, not even to the King. We tell them of death only as a courtesy. A family should regard an elder as dead as soon as he joins the glorious brotherhood.”

“Maybe you, Big Belekun, but he had a wife and children. They all came to Kongor with him. Fled, I heard.”

“No story is so simple, Tracker.”

“Yes, every story is. No story resists me cutting it down to one line, or even one word.”

“I am lost. What are we talking about now?”

“Basu Fumanguru. He used to be a favorite of the King.”

“I would not know.”

“Until he angered the King.”

“I would not know. But it is foolish to anger the King.”

“I thought that was what elders do. Anger the King—I mean, defend the people. There are marks on the streets, in gold, arrows that point where the King shall stop. One lies outside your door.”

“Wind can blow a river off course.”

“Wind blows shit right back to the source. You and the King are friends now.”

“All are friends of the King. None are friends of the King. You might as well say you are friends with a god.”

“Fine, you are friendly with the King.”

“Why should any man be an enemy of the King?”

“Did I ever tell you of my curse, Big Belekun?”

“We have no friendship, you and I. We were never—”

“Blood is the root. Like it is with so many things, and we are talking about family.”

“My supper calls me.”

“Yes it does. Of course it does. Eat some cheese.”

“My servants—”

“Blood. My blood. Don’t ask me how it would get there but should I grab my hand”—I pulled my dagger—“and cut my wrist here, not enough that life runs out, but enough to fill my palm, and—”

He looked up at the ceiling, even before I could point in that direction.

“And yours is very high. But it is my curse. That is, if I throw my own blood up in the ceiling, it breeds black.”

“What does that mean, breed black?”

“Men from darkest darkness—at least, they look like men. The ceiling gets unruly and spawns them. They stand on the ceiling as if it is floor. You know when the roof sounds like it is cracking.”

“Roof—”

“What?”

“Nothing. I said nothing.”

Belekun choked on a berry. He gulped down lime wine and cleared his throat.

“This, this Omoluzu sounds like a tale your mother told you. Sometimes the monsters in your mind burst through your head skin at night. But they are still in your mind. Yes.”

“So you have never seen one?”

“There is no Omoluzu to be seen.”

“Strange. Strange, Belekun the Big. This whole thing is strange.”

I walked over to him; the knife, I put back in the sheath. He tried to roll himself up to a seat but fell back down harder on his elbow. He grimaced, trying to turn it into a smile.

“You looked up before I said ceiling. I never said Omoluzu, but you did.”

“Interesting talk always makes me forget my hunger. I just remembered I am hungry.” Belekun stretched his fat hand out to a cushion with a brass bell on top, and rang it three times.

“Bisimbi, you say?”

“Yes, those little devil bitches of the flowing waters. Maybe he went to the river on the wrong night for a divination and annoyed one or two, or three. They must have followed him home. And the rest, they say, is the rest.”

“Bisimbi. You are sure?”

“As sure as I am that you annoy me like a scratch on the inside of my asshole.”

“Because Bisimbi are lake spirits. They hate rivers; the flowing water confuses them, makes them drift too far when they fall asleep. And there’s no lake in Malakal or Kongor. Also this. The Omoluzu attacked his house. His youngest son—”

“Yes, that poor child. He was of age to bull-jump his way to a man.”

“Too young for a bull jump, is this not so?”

“A child of ten and five years is more than old enough.”

“The child was not long born.”

“Fumanguru has no child not long born. His last was ten and five years ago.”

“How many bodies were found?”

“Ten and one—”

“How many were family?”

“They found as many bodies as there should have been in that house.”

“How are you so certain?”

“Because I counted them.”

“Nine of the same blood?”

“Eight.”

“Of course. Eight.”

“And the servants all accounted for?”

“We wouldn’t want to still be paying for a corpse.”

He rang the bell hard. Five times.

“You seem unsettled, Belekun the Big. Here let me help you u—”

As I bent over to grab his arm, air zipped past the back of my neck twice. I dropped to the floor and looked up. The third spear shot through, quick as the first two, and pierced the wall beside the other two. Belekun tried to scramble away, his feet slipping, and I grabbed his right foot. He kicked me in the face and crawled across the floor. I jumped up to a squat as the first guard ran at me from an inner room. Hair in three plaits and red as his skirt, he charged at me with a dagger. I pulled my hatchet before he got twenty paces and flung it straight between his eyes. Two throwing daggers passed over him, and I ducked to the ground again as another guard charged me. Belekun was trying to crawl to his door, but violence made even his fingers stiff, and he could barely move, like a tired fish too long out of water. My eyes on Belekun, I let the other guard get close to me, and as he swung a large ax I rolled to miss, before it hit the ground and sparked little lightnings. He swung it over his head and brought it down again, almost chopping my foot. Like a devil, this man. I pushed myself up on my elbows and jumped back right as he swung the ax to my face. He swung it right above me again, but I pulled my second hatchet, ducked under his swing, and chopped into his left shin. He screamed and the ax fell. He went down hard. I grabbed his ax and swung a chop to his temple. My blink blocked blood before it splashed my eye.

Belekun the Big pulled himself up. Somehow he found a sword. Just holding it made him tremble.

“I give you this, Belekun, for I give charity to all elders. You may deliver the first blow. First parry. Stab me. Chop if that is what the gods tell you,” I said. He blubbered something. I smelled piss.

Belekun trembled so hard his necklaces and bracelets all rattled.

“Raise your sword,” I said. Sweat ran from his forehead to his chins. He raised the sword and pointed it at me. It dipped from his hands and I stopped it with my foot, lifted it up until it pointed at me.

“I give you one more charity, Belekun the Big. I’ll fall on it for you.”

I threw myself on the sword. Belekun screamed. Then he looked at me, still in the air, his sword below me, both of us suspended as if we were the backsides of magnets.

“A sword cannot kill you?” he said.

“A sword cannot touch me,” I said. The sword flew out of his hand and I fell. Belekun rolled himself up and ran for the door, screaming, “Aesi, lord of hosts! Aesi, lord of hosts!”

I yanked a spear from the wall, took three steps, and threw it. The iron tip burst through his neck, shot through his mouth, and lodged in the door.

Six days after Leopard and I met at Kulikulo Inn, we were in the Uwomowomowomowo valley. No Bunshi, but the slaver was there trying to show the boy Fumeli how to ride a horse. He gripped the reins too tight, told the horse clashing messages, so of course she jumped up on two legs and threw him off. Three other horses stood off near a tree, grazing, all dressed in the floral cotton quilt saddles of the northern horse lords. Two horses, harnessed to a chariot, red with gold trim, stood waiting off in the distance, their tails whisking away flies. I had not seen a chariot since I tracked a pack of stolen horses far north of the sand sea. The horse threw Fumeli off again. I laughed out loud, hoping he heard. The Leopard saw me and changed, trotting off as I waved to him. I thought I would feel nothing when I saw Nyka coming out of the bush, Nsaka Ne Vampi beside him, both in long blue djellaba, dark as black skin in the night. His hair plaited tight into one braid, and curved out and up at the back like a horn. She covering her hair in a wrap. His bottom lip red and swollen, and a soiled white linen strip above his brow. The slaver kept one caravan, the prettiest one left behind, and from it came Sogolon the witch. She looked angry that sunlight was in her eyes, but that might have been how her face always looked.

“Wolf Eye, you look younger in the daylight,” Nyka said. He smiled and winced as he touched his bottom lip.

I said nothing. Nsaka Ne Vampi looked at me. I thought she would nod but she just looked.

“Where is the Ogo?” I said to the slaver.

“By the river.”

“Oh. Ogo are not known as bathers.”

“Who said he bathes?”

The slaver ran to Fumeli, who was trying to jump back on the horse.

“Young fool, stop. One horse kick, you go down and down you shall remain. I tell you true,” he said.

The slaver waved us over. The man who fed him dates came out of the caravan with a sack slung over his shoulder and a silver tray carrying several leather pouches. The slaver grabbed them one by one and threw them to us. I felt the texture of silver coins, heard them clink.

“This not your reward. This is what my bookkeepers have portioned out for your expenses, each according to your ability, which means you all received the same. Nothing is cheap in Kongor, especially information.”

His date feeder opened a sack, pulled out scrolls, and handed them to us. Nyka refused and so did Nsaka Ne Vampi. I wondered if she refused because he did. She talked much those nights ago, but said nothing now. Fumeli took one for the Leopard, who was still a Leopard, though he was listening.

“That is a map of the city drawn to the best recollection, since I have not been there in years. Beware of Kongor. Roads seem straight, and lanes promise to take you where they say they go, but they twist and snake you, and bend into places you will not want to go, places of no return. Listen to me good, I tell you true. There are two ways to get to Kongor. Tracker, you know of what I speak. Some of you will not. When you head west and get to the White Lake, you can go around it, which will add two days to your journey, or cross, which will take a day, for the lake is narrow. That is your choice, not mine. Then you can choose to ride around the Darklands, which will add three days to your journey, or ride through, but it is the Darklands,” the slaver said.

“What is the Darklands?” the boy Fumeli said.

The slaver grinned, then lost his grin. “Nothing that you can conceive in your head. Who here has been through the Darklands?”

Both Nyka and I nodded. We went through it together many years past, and neither of us would talk of it here. I already knew I was going around it, no matter what the others thought. Then Sogolon nodded.

“Again. Your choice, not mine. Three days’ ride to go around the Darklands, but one day to go through. And with either, it would still be three more days before Kongor. If you go around, you will head through nameless lands not claimed by any king. If you go through you will also travel through Mitu, where men have put down arms to ponder the great questions of earth and sky. A tiresome land and a tiresome race, you might find them worse than anything awaiting you in the Darklands. It will take you a day’s ride just to get out. But this again is your choice. Bibi here shall come with you.”

“Him? What shall he do? Feed us what we can reach for with our own hands?” Nyka said.

“I go for protection,” he said.

I was surprised at his voice, more commanding, like a warrior’s, not like someone who was trying to sing like a griot. This was the first time I really looked at him. Skinny as Fumeli and wearing a white djellaba gown past the knee, with a belt tied around the waist. From the belt hung a sword, which was not there the last two times I saw him. He saw me looking at it and approached me.

“I have never seen a takouba this far from the East,” I said.

“The owner should have never come west then,” he said, and smiled. “My name is Bibi.”

“Was that the name he gave you?” I asked.

“If that ‘he’ is my father, then yes.”

“Every slave I know, the master forced on him a new name.”

“And were I a slave, a new name I would have. You think me a slave because I feed him dates? He has me playing his deceits. People say much to a man who is less than a wall.”

I turned away from him, but that meant facing Nyka. He walked off a few paces, expecting me to follow.

“Tracker, you and me, we both left something in the Darklands, eh?” he said.

I stared at him.

“He should have left his woman tip,” Nsaka Ne Vampi said, and I was furious that he was telling her things about me. Betraying me still. They walked off, even though the slaver opened his mouth to say more.

“Of course, to tell you true, there are rumors. The last place eyes have seen him was not even Kongor, but not only eyes see. I told you before. You can follow the trail of the dead, who was found dead and quickly buried, sucked out like juice from a berry. There was word of a boy and four others in Nigiki, one time long ago in Kongor. But find him and bring him back to me in Malakal where—”

“You no longer ask for proof of his death?” I asked.

“I will be at the collapsed tower. This is all I have to say. Sogolon, I will speak to you alone,” he said.

Sogolon, who had not said a word up to this point, went off with him to the caravan.

“I know you need no help to get to Kongor,” Nyka said.

I was already looking west, but I turned around to see his face. Always a handsome man, even now with white hair peeking under his chin and brushing across the top of his plait. And his swollen lip.

“Here is a question only you are fit to answer. Though you never was one for words, which is why you used to need me. If you take the way through the Darklands, how many of you will make it to the other side, hmm? The Leopard? Cunning as a cat but too hot as a man, his temper makes him foolish. Like a young you, no? The crone talking to master slaver? She going to drop dead before you even get to the lake. So, that little boy over there, who fucks him, you or the cat? He will not even mount a horse, much less ride it. That leaves you with the slave—”

“He is not a slave.”

“No?”

“He said so.”

“I did not hear.”

“You did not listen.”

“So the man who is not a slave and the Ogo, and you know how much trust one can put in an Ogo.”

“More than one can put in you.”

“Hmm.” He laughed. Nsaka Ne Vampi stayed back. She noticed that I noticed. I also noticed he said you, not us.

“You have made other plans,” I said.

“You know me better than I know myself.”

“Must be some kind of curse, knowing you.”

“No man has known me better.”

“Then no man has known you at all.”

“So you wish to settle this now, hmm? How about it? Right here. Or maybe down by the lake. Or shall I expect you to come quick in the night like a lover? Sometimes I wish you did love me, Tracker. How can I give you peace?”

“I wish nothing from you. Not even peace.”

He laughed again, and walked away. Then he stopped, laughed yet again, and walked over to a huge, filthy tapestry that was covering something. Nsaka Ne Vampi climbed the chariot and grabbed the reins. Nyka pulled off the tapestry, revealing a cage, inside of which was the lightning woman. The Leopard saw her too. He trotted right up to the cage and growled. The woman scrambled to the farther side, though there was nowhere to go. She looked like a woman now. Her eyes were wide as if fright stuck itself on her face, like those children who were born in war. Nyka pulled the lock. The woman pushed back even farther and the cage shifted with her. The Leopard trotted away and lay in the dirt, but still he watched her. She sniffed around, looked around, then sprang out of the cage. She spun one way and then the next, looking at the caravan, the trees, the Leopard, the man and woman in the same blue, then jerked her head north, as if somebody just called her. Then she ran, barely on her two legs, hopped over a mound, leapt as high as a tree, and was gone. Nyka jumped on the chariot, just as Nsaka Ne Vampi whipped the reins, and the horses galloped away. North.

“The lake, not west?” Bibi, the date feeder, said.

I did not answer.

This boy was going to scare his horse into galloping, throwing him and breaking his neck. I wasn’t about to teach him. The Leopard was no use since he stayed the cat, spoke to no one, and ran off as far as he could get from us while still hearing us. Sogolon would need help mounting a horse, I thought. Or she would attach some cot or cart to carry herself and whatever it was witches carry, maybe the leg of a baby, shit from a virgin, the hide of an entire buffalo stored in salt, or whatever she needed for conjuring. But she strapped a deerskin bag over her shoulder, grabbed the saddle horn with her left hand, and swung herself up, right into the saddle. Even the Ogo noticed. He of course would squash ten horses just by sitting on them, so he ran. For a man of such height and weight he made almost no sound and shook no ground. I wondered if he had bought a gift of stealth from a Sangoma, a witchman, a witch, or a devil. These were strong horses, but only good for a day’s ride at a time, so two days to the White Lake. I tied the second supplies horse to mine. Sogolon had gone ahead of us, but the Ogo waited. I think he was afraid of her. Bibi jumped off his horse and tied a sisal rope from his saddle to the bridle of one of the horses carrying supplies and told Fumeli to mount it.

We had set off. Bunshi did not travel with us. Sogolon wore a vial around her neck the colour of Bunshi’s skin. I noticed it when she rode past me. When we were so close our horses nearly touched she leaned in and said, “That boy. What is his use?”

“Ask the one who uses him,” I said.

She laughed and galloped off into the savannah, leaving a scent trail that I couldn’t identify. I was in no hurry to reach Kongor since the missing boy was doubtless dead and in no danger of getting more dead. And they were all annoying me—the Leopard with his silence; Fumeli with his petulance, which I wanted to slap out of his sullen cheeks; this date feeder Bibi, who was trying to appear as something more than a man who stuffs food into another man’s mouth; and Sogolon, who had already decided that no man was smarter than she. The only other choice was to think of Belekun the Big, who tried to kill me when I asked about the missing boy’s father. He knew of Omoluzu and he knew Omoluzu killed the boy’s father, though he might not have known that one has to summon them with serious malcontent. He called to someone as lord of hosts. They never grow less stupid, men who believe in belief. We had not yet set out and there were people who I longed to see less.

That left the Ogo. The larger the being, the less they needed words, or knew them, I have always found. I slowed my horse, waiting for him to catch up. He really did smell fresh as if he was bathing in the river before, even under his arms, which on the wrong giant could knock down a cow.

“I think we will make it to the White Lake in two days,” I said. He kept walking.

“We will make it in two days,” I shouted. He turned around and grunted. Oh, this was going to be the most wonderful trip.

Not that I even cared for company. Certainly not these people. But I spend most of my days alone, and my nights with people I never wish to see in the morning. I will admit, at least to my darkest soul, that there was nothing worse to be than in the middle of many souls, even souls you might know, and still be lonely. I have spoken of this before. Men I have met and women too, surrounded by what they think is love and yet are the loneliest in all the ten and three worlds.

“Ogo. You are Ogo, are you not?”

He slowed his walking and my horse strode beside him. He grunted and nodded again.

“I saw you around the back after your bath, you kneeled before some rocks. A shrine?”

“A shrine to who?”

“The gods, some god.”

“I do not know of any gods,” he said.

“Then why build a shrine?”

He looked at me blank, as if he had no answer.

“Are you here for the slaver, the demigod, or the witch?” I said.

He kept walking, but looked at me and said, “Slaver, demigod, or witch? Which is which, I say to you, which is which. Are you sure the black one is a demigod and not a god? I have seen more of her kind—one was a man, at least he shaped like a man, but are made by the gods. People in the South say that a demigod is a man changed by the gods but not through death, and death is the thing, the fearful thing. I don’t like the dead, I don’t like noon of the dead, I don’t like eaters of the dead and I have seen them, old men in black coats that sweep the ground and white fur around the neck as if they wear the skin of vulture. But she is of a strange kind, whatever you call the animal that is half elephant, half fish, or half man and half horse, that is where you should put her, but the slaver is why I am here, he came to me and said, Sadogo I have work for you, and he knew I did not have work, for in the West what work is there for an Ogo? Yes I was out of work, and at my home, which I left open day and night for who would be foolish to rob from an Ogo, did they not hear we are terrible beasts? But at my home, rather my hut, was the slaver who said I have a job for you, great giant, and I said I am not a giant, giants are twice my height, have nothing between their ears but meat, and rape horses because they think all animals with long hair must be womenfolk and a kick from a horse means there will be much sport in the fucking, so he said again I have work, I need you to find some men who are evil to me, and I said what should I do with these men when I find them, and he said kill them all except for one who is not a man but a boy and to not disturb a hair on his head unless he is no longer a boy. He says to me, Ogo, what he might have changed into will not be man, but something else, something that even the gods spit upon as abomination, and then he said more but I did not understand a thing after he said abomination, and then I said where is this boy that you would have me find, and he said I will have men join you, and women too for this is not as easy as it is to say, and I said that it sounds simple enough and I will be back before I miss my house and my crops start to fail, but then I thought of the last man I killed and how his family will soon miss his cruelty and search for him, and when they come with a mob, I will leave many wives widows and boys orphans, so then I thought, let this mission take us for as long as it will take us for I have nothing to return to, and he said then you have that in common with all the others, that none of you have anything to return to, but I do not know if that is true, I do not know any of you, but I have heard of Sogolon the witch of the moon, do you know of her? How did you know she was writing runes? She is three hundred, ten and five years in age, she said this to me and other things too, for people always think the Ogo are simple in the head so one can tell them anything, and this she did; here is what she said: They call me Sogolon, and I had never answered to any other name. They used to call me Sogolon the ugly, until all who called me so died by the same choke in the throat. Sogolon the Moon Witch, who always made craft in the dark, others say. She said she is from the West, but I come from the West and to me she smells like the people of the Southwest who smell sour but the good sour that mixes with sweet, and sparkles life, which you also know because I heard that you have a nose. Does she write runes always? Her hands are never steady, never still. A woman as old as she was expert in the keeping of secrets, so I assumed she had some other reason that she would not say, since coin could not have meant much to her. Then she spoke in riddles and rhyme but there was no art to it. All this time there was no wrath in her, but no mirth either, or pleasantness. I have guessed that she vanishes and returns, as is her way. And that is what I know. You must forgive Ogo. So few people speak to him that when they do he always has too much to say. And …”

And like this Sadogo the Ogo talked through the night. Through our stopping and tying off the horses to a tree. Through us building a fire, and cooking porridge, and losing the star that pointed us west, through trying to sleep, failing to sleep, listening for lions moving through the night, waiting for the fire to burn out, and finally falling into the kind of sleep where he spoke through dreams. I could not tell if it was the sun or his voice that woke me up. Fumeli fell asleep. Bibi, lying beside me, was awake and frowning. The Ogo’s voice went lower, with silence eating off the end of his lines.

“From now on I shall be quiet,” he said.

I stared at him for a long time. Bibi laughed and went off in the bush to piss. I rolled myself to a sit and yawned.

“No, please go on, good Ogo. Sadogo. I will have your words. You make a long trip short. You know Nyka?”

His glare was worth it. “I met him a moon before I met you,” he said.

“And he gives you gossip of other people already.”

“When the slaver came to me, both Nyka and Nsaka Ne Vampi rode with him.”

“This is indeed news. What did he say of me?”

“The slaver?”

“No, Nyka.”

“That you can trust the Tracker with your life, if he thinks you have honor.”

“That is what he said?”

“Is it false?”

“I am not the person to answer that.”

“Why is it not? I have never lied but I see that to lie may have purpose.”

“And betrayal? Does betrayal have a purpose other than what it is?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“No worry. It is dead, the thought.”

“This one was in the cart too,” he said, pointing to Bibi walking back.

We saddled the horses and set off. I turned to Bibi. “Tell me this. Your master lied to us about the boy. The truth is he has no stake in the child. But he has much in pleasing Bunshi.

“He is worried by the silence of the gods,” Bibi said. “He thinks he’s displeased them when the gods’ silence has fallen on every house.”

“He should worry more about the silence of all the slaves plotting against him,” I said.

“Ha, Tracker, I saw your face. Few days ago. Much enjoyment I got from it, your disgust. I think you are too hard on the noble trade.”

“What?”

“Tracker, or whatever your name is. Were it not for slaves, every man from the East would be a virgin at marriage. I met one once, this is a true word. He thought woman bred child by sticking her breasts into a man’s mouth. Were it not for slaves, good Malakal would be left with nothing but false gold, and cheap salt. I justify it not. But I do know why it is here.”

“So you approve of the ways of your master,” I said.

“I approve of the coin he gives me to feed my children. From the look of you I know you have none. But yes, I stuff his face because every other work he gives to slaves.”

“Is he who you wish to be? When you are a man?”

“Unlike the bitch boy I am now? Here is more truth. If my master as you call him were any more dumb I would have to prune and water him three times a quartermoon,” Bibi said, and chuckled.

“Then leave.”

“Leave? Just like that. Speak to me of this Leopard. What kind of man, with such ease, walks away as he pleases?”

“One who belongs to no one.”

“Or no one belongs to you.”

“Nobody loves no one,” I said.

“The son of a bitch who taught you that hates you. So, as my master would say, tell me true, tell me plain, tell me quick. Is it you with the boy behind me, or the spotted one?”

“Why does every mis-bred soul ask me about this mis-bred boy?”

“Because the cat isn’t talking. The other servers of the King—they are slaves, mind you—were all casting bets. Who is the rod, who is the staff, and who takes it up the shithole.”

I laughed. “What did you guess?” I asked.

“Well, since you are the one they both hate, they say you are being fucked by both.”

I laughed again. “And you?”

“You don’t walk like someone who gets fucked often up the ass,” he said.

“Maybe you don’t know me.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t fucked in the ass. I said you weren’t fucked often.”

I turned and stared at him. He stared at me. I laughed first. Then we couldn’t stop laughing. Then Fumeli said something about not sticking the horse hard enough and we both nearly fell off our horses.

Except for Sogolon, Bibi looked the oldest among us. Certainly the only one so far to mention children. It made me think of the mingi children of the Sangoma who we left with the Gangatom to raise. The Leopard was to give me word of what has happened to them since, but has not.

“How did you come by that sword?” I asked.

“This?” Bibi withdrew it. “I told you, from a mountain man east who made the mistake of going west.”

“Mountain men never go west. Let us speak true, date feeder.”

He laughed. “How old are you in years? Twenty, seven and one?”

“Twenty and five. Do I look so old?”

“I would guess older but did not want to be rude to so new a friend.” He smiled. “I have been twenty twice. And five more years.”

“Fuck the gods. I have never known men to live that long who were not rich, or powerful, or just fat. That means you were old enough to see the last war.”

“I was old enough to fight in it.”

He glanced past me, at the savannah grass, shorter than before, and the sky, cloudier than before, though we could feel the sun. It was cooler as well. We had long left the valley for lands no man has ever tried to live in.

“I know no man who has seen war that will speak of it,” Bibi said.

“Were you a soldier?”

He laughed short. “Soldiers are fools not paid enough to be fools. I was a mercenary.”

“Tell me about the war.”

“All one hundred years of it? Which war are we speaking?”

“Which one did you fight?”

“The Areri Dulla war. Who knows what those buffalo-fuckers of the South called it, though I heard they called it the War of Northern Belligerence, which is hilarious, given that they threw spears first. You were born three years after the last truce. That was the war that caused it. Such a curious family. With all the inbreeding producing mad kings you would think one day a king would say, Let us find some fresh blood to save the line, but no. So we have war upon war. This truth. I cannot say if Kwash Netu was a rare good king or if the new and mad Massykin King was just madder than the last, but he was brilliant at war. He had an art for it, the way some have an art for pottery or poetry.”

Bibi halted his horse and I did mine. I could tell Fumeli looked up, annoyed. The air was wet with the rain that was not going to come.

“We need to move now,” Fumeli said.

“Rest easy, child. The Leopard will be just as hard when you finally get to sit on him,” Bibi said.

This I turned around for. Fumeli’s face was as horrified as I knew it would be. I turned back to Bibi.

“My father never spoke of the war. He never fought in any,” I said.

“Too old?”

“Maybe. He was also my grandfather. But you were talking of war.”

“What? You … Yes, the war. I was ten and seven years and staying in Luala Luala with my mother and father. The mad Massykin King invaded Kalindar, a moon and a half’s march to Malakal, but still too close. Too close to Kwash Netu. My mother said, One day men will come to our house and say we have chosen you for war. I said, Maybe if I fight in war it will finally bring back the glory to our house that Father squandered with wine and women. With what will you bring glory, for you have no honor, she said. She was right, of course. I was between killings, and people have less need for private battles when all are caught up in war. And just as she said, great warriors came to the house and said, You, you are young and strong, at least you look it. Time to send that Omororo Bitch King back to his barrenlands with his tail between his legs. And what should I fight for? I asked, and they were offended. You should fight for the glorious Kwash Netu and for the empire. I spat and opened my robe to show him my necklace. I am of the Seven Wings, I said. Warriors of the coin.”

“Who are the Seven Wings?”

“Mercenaries, kidnapped from drunkard fathers with debts they cannot pay. Skilled in weapons and masters of iron. We travel quick and vanish like an afterthought. Our masters test us with scorpions so we know no fear,” Bibi said.

“How?”

“They sting us to see who lives. In battle, we make the formation of the bull. We are the horns, the most ferocious; we attack first. And we cost more than most kings can pay. But our Kwash Netu was quite wise in the art of war. I heard this from the mad King: One ruler cannot be in two places at once or three, for he is only one. He sits in Fasisi, so let us attack Mitu. So the Massykin attacked Mitu, and Mitu was his. He thought it was victory, and it is not an unwise thought that since the King cannot be in two places at once, he let us attack a place he cannot be. This was his mistake, Tracker. Hear this, that was no weakness. The southern armies played into the very greatness of Kwash Netu, being in many places at once.”

“Witchcraft?”

“Not everything comes from the womb of witches, Tracker. Your King’s father knew how to move armies faster than any king before or since. Movements that would take even the Kongori seven days, his army could cross in two. He chose wise where to fight, and where he could not, he bought the best, and most brutally taxed his people to do it. The best were the Seven Wings. Take this as truth as well. The mad King was a flighty fool who screamed at the sight of blood, and did not know the name of his own generals—while Kwash Netu had his own men to lead in the territories, strong men, who could run a city, or a state when he was gone to war in another. Did you hear of the war of women?”

“No. Tell me.”

“After his generals said to the mad King, Most Divine, we must retreat from Kalindar, our four sisters are in jeopardy, the King agreed. But then that night at the camp, for he demanded to be with his men in war, he heard two cats fucking and thought it was a night devil calling him a coward for retreating. So he demanded they advance again into Kalindar, only to be beaten by women and children hurling rocks and shit from their mud-brick towers. Meanwhile, Kwash Netu took Wakadishu. The final stand at Malakal was not even much of a stand. It was the dregs of an army fleeing stone-throwing women. The war was already won.”

“Hmm. That is not what they teach in Malakal.”

“I have heard the songs and read leaves of paper bound in leather-skin, how Malakal was the last stand between the light of Kwash Netu Empire and the darkness of the Massykin. Songs of fools. Only those who have not fought in war fail to see they were both dark. Alas, a mercenary without a war is a mercenary without work.”

“You know much about war, generals, and court. How ended you here, stuffing a fat pig dates for a living?”

“Work is work, Tracker.”

“And horseshit is horseshit.”

“Sooner than later the darkness of war shades every man who fought it. My needs are simple. Feeding my children as they too become men is one. Pride is not.”

“I don’t believe you. And after all you just said, I believe you even less. There is craft in your ways. Do you plan to kill him? I know, a rival hired you to get closer to him than a lover.”

“If I wanted to kill him I could have four years ago. He knows what I can do. I think it pleases him that people think I’m a silly girl-boy who likes to play with his mouth. He thinks it means I can sift through his enemies and deal with them.”

“So you are his spy. To spy on us?”

“Fool, he has Sogolon for that. I am here for whatever surprises the gods have in store for you.”

“I would hear more about what these great wars have done to you.”

“And I would say no more about it. War is war. Think of the worst that you have seen. Now think of seeing that every three steps for one quartermoon’s walk.”

We were now in deep grassland, greener and wetter than the brown bush of the valley, with the horses’ hooves sinking deeper in the dirt. Ahead, maybe another half a day’s ride, trees stood up and spread. Mountains hung back all around us. On the side, going west from Malakal, the mountains and the forest both looked blue. Along the grass and the wetness, bamboo giants of the grass sprouted, one, then two, then a clump, then a forest of them that blocked the late-afternoon sun. Other trees reached tall into the sky and ferns hid the dirt. I smelled a fresh brook before I heard or saw it. Ferns and bulbs sprouted out of fallen trees. We followed what looked like a track until I smelled that both the Leopard and Sogolon had gone that way. On my right hand, through the tall leaves, a waterfall rushed down rocks.

“Where they gone?” Fumeli asked.

“Fuck the gods, boy,” I said. “Your cat is but a—”

“Not him. Where are the beasts? No pangolin, no mandrill, not even a butterfly. Can your nose only smell what is here, and not what is gone?”

I did not want to talk to Fumeli. I would punch whatever rudeness came from his mouth.

“I will call him Red Wolf now—that is what he told me,” Bibi said.

“Who?”

“Nyka.”

“He mocks the red ochre I used to rub on my skin, saying only Ku women wear red,” I said.

“Truth for your ears? I have never seen a man in that colour,” Bibi said.

Bibi stopped, his brow furrowed, and looked at me as if trying to catch something he missed, then shook it out.

“And wolf?” he asked.

“You have not seen my eye?”

I knew his look. It said, There is a little that you are not telling me, but I care not enough to press it.

“What is that smell on the witch? I cannot place it,” I said.

He shrugged.

“Tell me something else, Sadogo,” I said to the Ogo.

This is true: The Ogo did not stop talking until evening caught us. And then he talked about the night catching us. I forgot about Fumeli until he hissed, and paid no attention until he hissed a third time. We came to a fork in the trail, a path left and a path right.

“We go left,” I said.

“Why left? This is the trail Kwesi take?”

“This is the trail I take,” I said. “Go your own way if you wish, just untie your horse from Bibi.” I heard the dull clump of hooves on mud and branches cracking.

I did not wait for him to say anything. The trail was narrow but there was a path and the sun was almost gone.

“No bat, no owl, no chirping beast,” Fumeli said.

“What twig is up your asshole now?”

“The boy is right, Tracker. No living thing moves through this forest,” Bibi said. One hand on the bridle, the other gripped his sword.

“Where is your great nose now?” Fumeli said.

I set it down in my mind right there. Never again would this boy be correct on anything. But both of them were right. I knew many of the animal smells of the montane grasslands, and none passed by my nose. And the scents of the forest that I did smell—gorilla, kingfisher, viper-skin—were too far away. No living thing but trees conspiring in circles and river water rushing down rocks. The Ogo was still talking.

“Sadogo, quiet.”

“Huh?”

“Hush. Movement in the bush.”

“Who?”

“None. That is what I say, there is no movement in the bush.”

“I was the one to say it first,” said Fumeli.

Was he worth me turning around so he could see my scowl? No.

“Many people say you have a nose, not I. What does your precious nose smell now?”

A neck as thin as his, thin as a girl’s, I could snap with no effort. Or I could let the Ogo break him in many pieces. But when I took in a deep breath, smells did come at me. Two that I knew, one I had not come across in many years.

“Grab your bow and draw an arrow, boy,” Bibi said.

“Why?”

“Do it now,” he said, trying to whisper harshly. “And dismount.”

We left the horses by a brook. The Ogo dipped into his bag and pulled out two shiny gauntlets, which I have only seen on the King’s knights. His fingers were now shiny black scales and his knuckles, five spikes. Bibi pulled his sword.

“I smell an open fire, wood, and fat,” I said. Bibi covered his mouth, pointed at us, then pointed at his mouth.

I said nothing else, now that I knew what we would find, judging from the smell. The sour stink of hair, the saltiness of the flesh. Soon we could see the fire and the light slipping through the forest. There it was, stuck on a spit, cooking above the fire while the fat dripped into the flames and burst. A boy’s leg. Farther off, hanging from a tree, was the boy looking at his leg, a rope tied around the stump. They had cut off his right leg all the way to the thigh and his left leg to the knee. His left arm was cut off at the shoulder. They hung him in the tree by rope. They also hung a girl, who seemed to have all four limbs. Three of them sat a good distance from the fire, a fourth off in the bush, but not far, crouched to shit.

We rushed them before we could see them, before they could see us. Hatchets out, I aimed for the first one’s head, but it bounced off. Fumeli shot four arrows; three bounced off, one struck the second one’s cheek. The Ogo punched the third straight into the tree. Then he punched a hole through his chest and the tree. Bibi swung his sword and struck the third in the neck but it lodged there. He pushed him off the blade with his foot, then stabbed him in the belly. The first one charged straight at me, holding nothing in his hands. I dipped out of his reach and something knocked him over. On the ground I jumped on him and hacked straight into the soft flesh of the face. The nose. I chopped again and again until his flesh splashed on me. The thing that knocked him over growled before changing back to a man.

“Kwesi!” Fumeli shouted, and ran to him, then stopped. Fumeli touched him on the shoulder. I wanted to say, Go behind the tree and fuck if you wish. None of us remembered the last of them shitting in the bush until the girl tied up in the tree screamed. He came at us waving his arms, his claws shining in the firelight. He roared louder than a lion, but something cut the roar. Even he was confused that his own mouth closed up on him, until he looked down to his chest and saw a spear bursting right through it. He whimpered his last and fell facedown.

Sogolon stepped over his body and approached us. I lit a dry stick and waved it over the beast nearest the fire. A snap. Ogo had broken the one-limb boy’s neck. It was for the best that he died quick, and nobody said different. The girl, as soon as we lowered her down, started screaming and screaming until Sogolon slapped her twice. She was covered in white streaks but I knew all the marks of the river tribes and these were none of them.

“We are offerings. You should not have come,” she said.

“You are what?” the Leopard said.

I was very happy to see him as a man again and not sure why. It still irritated me to talk to him.

“We are the glorious offerings to the Zogbanu. They leave alone our villages that are on their lands and let us plant crops. I was raised for this—”

“No woman is raised for man to use,” said Sogolon.

I pulled the spear out of the last one and rolled him over with my foot. Horns large, curved, and pointed to a sharp tip like a rhinoceros’s sprouted all over his head and neck, with smaller horns on his shoulders. They pointed in all directions, these horns, like a beggar with locks thickened by dirt. Horns wide as a child’s head and long as a tusk, horns short and stumpy, horns like a hair, gray and white like his skin. Both brows grew into horns and his eyes had no pupils. Nose wide and flat with hair sticking out of the nostrils like bush. Thick lips as wide as the face and teeth like a dog’s. Scars all over his chest, maybe for all his kills. A belt holding up a loincloth on which hung child skulls.

“What kind of devil is this?” I asked.

Bibi crouched and turned its head. “Zogbanu. Trolls from the Blood Swamp. I saw many during the war. Your last King even used some as berserkers. Each one worse than the one before.”

“This is no swamp.”

“They are roving. The girl is not from here either. Girl, where do they go?”

“I am the glorious offering to the Yeh—”

Sogolon slapped her.

“Bingoyi yi kase nan,” the girl said.

“They eat man flesh,” Sogolon said.

That’s when we all looked at the leg cooking on the spit. Sadogo kicked it over.

“They are traveling?” I asked.

“Yes,” Bibi said.

“But she just said she was a sacrifice so that they would share their land,” I said.

“Not nomads,” the Leopard said.

He walked right up to me, but looked at Bibi. “And they are not traveling, they are hunting. Somebody told them a bounty of flesh would be coming through these woods. Us.”

The girl screamed. No, it was not a scream, there was no fear in it. It was a call.

“Get the horses!” the Leopard shouted at us. “And cover that girl’s mouth!”

You could hear the shuffle through the bushes even as we ran. The rustle coming from all corners and all sides moving ever closer. I slapped Fumeli’s horse and she took off. Sogolon appeared with her horse and galloped away. I followed, kneeing my horse sharp in the ribs. Bibi, riding beside me, said something or laughed, when a Zogbanu leapt out of the dark bush with a club and knocked him off. I did not stop and neither did his horse. I looked back only once to see Zogbanus, many of them, pile on top of him until the pile became a hill. He did not stop shouting until they stopped him. I caught up with Sogolon, but they caught up with us. One leapt for me and missed, his horns slicing the rump of my horse. She leapt up and nearly threw me. Two came out of the bush and started pawing at her. Arrows went into the first one’s back, and more went into the other’s chest and face. The Leopard, now on the same horse as Fumeli, shouted for us to follow him. Behind us more Zogbanus than eyes could count, growling and snarling, sometimes their horns tangling and causing a few to fall. They ran almost as fast as the horses through the thick brush. One came of the brush, his face running right into my hatchet. I wished I had a sword. Sogolon had one, riding and slashing and cutting as if clearing away wild bush. Bibi’s horse fell back without a rider to push him. The Zogbanu jumped him, all as one, the way I see lions do a young buffalo. I kneed my poor horse harder; many still chased us. Then I heard the zip-zip-zip-zip past us. Throwing daggers. The beasts had weapons. One struck Sogolon in her left shoulder. She grunted, but kept slashing with her right hand. Ahead I could see the Leopard and ahead of him a clearing and the glimmer of water. We were coming out when in the quick a Zogbanu jumped my horse right behind me and knocked me off. We rolled in the grass. He grabbed my throat and dug into my neck. They liked their meat fresh, so I knew he was not going to kill me. But he was trying to make me quick-sleep. His breath blew foul and left a white cloud. Smaller horns than the others, a young one out to prove himself. I fumbled for the daggers and plunged one into his right ribs and another into the ribs on his left again, and again, and again, until he fell on me and I could not breathe. The Leopard pulled him off me and shouted for me to run. He changed and growled. I don’t know if that scared them. But by the time I got to the lake, everyone had already boarded a wide raft, including the girl and my horse. I staggered on just as the Leopard jumped past me. Zogbanu swarmed the shore, maybe ten and five, maybe twenty, so close they looked like one wide beast of horns and thorns.

Without anyone pushing it, the raft set off. At the front, sitting as praying in her quiet little chamber, unaware of the world as it fucking burned, was Bunshi.

“Night bitch, you were testing us,” I said.

“She do no such thing,” said Sogolon.

“This was not a question!”

Sogolon said nothing, but sat there as if praying, when I knew she was not.

“We should go back for Bibi.”

“He’s dead,” Bunshi said.

“He is not. They take their victims alive so they can eat the flesh fresh.”

She stood up and turned to face me.

“Not telling you nothing you do not know. It’s care that you lack,” I said.

“He is a slave. He was born to die servin—”

“And you could be your mother’s own sister. His birth was more noble than yours.”

“You speak against the water—”

Bunshi waved her hand and Sogolon stayed quiet.

“There are bigger things than—”

“Than what? A slave? A man? A woman? Everybody on this raft thinking, At least I am better than that slave. They will take days to kill him, you know this. They will cut him up and burn each wound so he will not die from sickness. You know how man-eaters work. And yet there are bigger things.”

“Tracker.”

“He is not a slave.”

I dived into the water.

The next morning I woke up in thin brown bush with a hand on my chest. The girl from the night before, some of her clay washed off, cupping and feeling it, as if weighing iron because she had only seen brass. I pushed her off. She scrambled back to the other side of the raft, right to the feet of Sogolon, who stood like a captain, holding her spear like a staff. The sun had been up for some time, it seemed, for my skin was hot. Then I jumped.

“Where’s Bibi?”

“Do you not remember?” Sogolon said.

And as she said it, I remembered. Swimming back in water that felt like black slick, the shore moving farther and farther away, but me using rage to get there. The Zogbanu were gone, back into the bush. I had no hatchets and only one knife. The Zogbanu’s skin had felt like tree bark, but by his ribs felt soft, and as with all beasts, one could throw a spear right through. Someone grabbed my hand with old fingers. Fingers black as night.

“Bunshi,” I said.

“Your friend is dead,” she said.

“He is not dead just because you say he is dead.”

“Tracker, they were on the hunt for food and we took away their last meal. They will not eat the boy whose neck we broke.”

“I am still going.”

“Even if it means your death?”

“What is that to you?”

“You are still a man of great use. These beasts will certainly kill you, and what would be the use of two dead bodies?”

“I shall go.”

“At least do not be seen.”

“Will you cast a masking spell?”

“Am I a witch?”

I looked around and thought she was gone until wetness seeped between my toes. The lake getting pulled to the shore by the moon, I was sure of it. Then the water rose to my ankles but did not return to the lake. There was no lake water at all, just something black, cool, and wet crawling up my legs. I caught fright, but only for a blink, and let her cover me. Bunshi stretched her skin up past my calves to my knee, around and above it, covered my thighs and belly, going onto every bit of skin. Truth, I did not like this at all. She was cold, colder than the lake, and yet looking down I wanted to go to the lake just to see myself looking like her. She reached my neck and gripped it so tight that I slapped her.

“Stop trying to kill me,” I said.

She relaxed her grip, covered my lips, face, then head.

“Zogbanu see bad in the dark. But they smell and hear and feel your heat.”

I thought she was going to lead me but she was still. We did not get very far.

The fire was already raging in the sky. One of the Zogbanu grabbed Bibi’s head and pulled him up. He held half of Bibi in the air. His chest was already cut open to remove the guts, his ribs spread out like a cow killed for a feast. They threw him on the spit and the fire rose to meet him.

I snapped myself back from the dream and vomited. I stood up. It wasn’t the dream that made me want to vomit, but the raft. And what raft was this? A huge mound of bone dirt and grass that looked like a small island, not something made by man. The Leopard sat on the other side, his legs up. He looked at me and I looked at him. Neither of us nodded. Fumeli sat down beside him, but did not look at me. Only one of the supply horses survived, cutting our meals in half. The painted girl kneeled down beside the standing Sogolon. The raft island sunk a little underneath the Ogo. What is it, this thing we sail on? I wanted to ask, but knew his answer would take us into night. Sogolon, standing there as if seeing lands we could not see, was without doubt steering this with magic. The painted girl looked at me, wrapping herself in leather-skin.

“Are you a beast, like him?” she asked, pointing at the Leopard.

“You mean this?” I said, pointing to my eye. “This is of the dog, not of the cat. And I am not an animal, I am a man.”

“What is man, and what is woman?” the girl said.

“Bingoyi yi kase nan,” I said.

“She said that to me three times in the night, even in sleep,” she said, pointing at Sogolon.

“A girl is a hunted animal,” I said.

“I am the glorious offering of—”

“Of course you are.”

Everyone was so quiet that I could hear water gurgle under the raft. The Ogo turned around. He said, “What is man and what is woman? Well that is a simple question with a simple answer, except for when—”

“Sadogo, not now,” I said.

“Your name? What do they call you?” I asked.

“The higher ones call me Venin. They call all chosen ones Venin. He is Venin and she is Venin. The great mothers and fathers chose me from before birth to be a sacrifice to the Zogbanu. I have been in prayer from birth till now and I am still in prayer.”

“Why are they this far north?”

“I am the chosen one to sacrifice to the horned gods. This is how it was with my mother and the mother of my mother.”

“Mother and mother of moth … Then how are you here? Someone remind me, why did we take this one?” I said.

“Maybe stop asking questions where you know the answer,” the Leopard said.

“Is that it? Where would I be without the wise Leopard? What is this answer that I already know?”

“They would have eaten down to girl and boy bones by now. They were waiting for us.”

“Your slaver told them we were coming,” I said to the Leopard.

“He’s not my slaver,” he said.

“You both fool. Why send we on a mission then stop we from doing it?” Sogolon asked.

“He changed his mind,” I said.

She frowned. I was not going to say, Sogolon, what you say here is true. The Leopard nodded.

“Nothing point to no betrayal from the slaver,” she said.

“Of course. The Zogbanu was just following shifting winds. Maybe it was someone on this raft. Or off it.”

The sun was right above us and the lake had gone deeper blue. Bunshi was in the water, I saw her low down in the blue; her skin, which looked black in the night, now looked indigo. She darted like a fish, up above the water, then down, the east far off and west far off, then back, right beside the raft. She was like water creatures I have seen in rivers. A fin right down the back of her head and neck, shoulders and breasts and belly like a woman’s, but from the hip down the long swishy tail of a great fish.

“What is she doing?” I said to Sogolon, who up till now hadn’t bothered to look at me. The view ahead was nothing but the line separating sea from sky, but she fixed her eyes on it.

“You have never seen a fish?”

“She is not a fish.”

“She is speaking to Chipfalambula. Asking her for one more traveling mercy to take us to the other side. We are not here by permission, after all.”

“Not where?”

“You fool,” she said, and looked down.

“This?” I said, and kicked up dirt.

Her standing there, looking like a leader, annoyed me. I walked past her to the front of the raft and sat down. Here the mound sloped down into the river. I could see the rest of the raft under the water. It was not a raft, it was a floating island controlled by wind or magic. Two fishes, maybe as tall as I am, swam in front.

What I saw next I was sure I did not see. The island below the sea opened a slit right at the front where I sat and swallowed the first fish. Half of the second stuck out, but the opening chomped it down. Below my right heel I saw Chipfalambula’s eyes looking up at me. I jumped. Her gills opened and closed. Farther down her enormous fins, each wider than a boat, paddled slow in the lake, the half below the water a morning blue, the half above the colour of sand and dust.

“Popele asks permission of the Chipfalambula the toll taker to take us to the other side. She has not yet given an answer,” Sogolon said.

“We are long gone from land. Is that not her answer?”

Sogolon laughed. Bunshi leapt fully out of the water and dived, right in front of it, whatever it was.

“Chipfalambula does not take you into deep water to carry you to the other side. She takes you out to eat you.”

Sogolon was serious. Nobody felt the thing moving but we all felt when it stopped. Bunshi swam right up to its mouth and I thought it would swallow her. She dove under and came up by the side of her right fin. It swatted her as one would a wasp and she flew into the sky and landed far off into the water. She swam back in a blink and climbed back on top of the big fish. She walked past us to stand with Sogolon. The great fish started moving again.

“Fat cow, cantankerousness growing in her old age,” she said.

I went over to the Leopard. He still sat with Fumeli, both of them with knees drawn up to chest.

“I will have words with you,” I said.

He stood up, as did Fumeli. Both wore leather skirts, but the Leopard was not as uneasy with it as he was back at Kulikulo Inn.

“You only,” I said.

Fumeli refused to sit, until the Leopard turned around and nodded.

“Wearing sandals next?”

“What is this about?” Leopard asked.

“You have something else pressing you? Another meeting on the back of this fish?”

“What is this about?”

“I went to see an elder about Basu Fumanguru. Just to see if these stories would turn true. He told me that the Fumanguru house fell to sickness, caught from a river demon. But when I said something about cutting my hand and throwing blood, he looked up to the ceiling before I even said it. He knows. And he lied. Bisimbi is not a river demon. They have no love for rivers.”

“So that is where you went?”

“Yes, that is where I went.”

“Where is this elder now?”

“With his ancestors. He tried to kill me when I told him he was lying. Here is the thing. I do not think he knew of the child.”

“So?”

“A chief elder and not know about his own? He said the youngest boy was ten and five.”

“It’s still riddles, what you say,” the Leopard said.

“I say this. The boy was not Fumanguru’s son, no matter what Bunshi or the slaver or anyone says. I am sure the elder knew Fumanguru was going to be murdered, might have ordered it himself. But he counted eight bodies, which is what he expected to count.”

“He knows of the murder, but does not know of the child?”

“Because the child was no son of Fumanguru. Or ward, or kin or even guest. The elder tried to kill me because he saw I knew he knew about the murder. But he did not know there was another boy. Whoever is behind the killing told him nothing,” I said.

“And the boy is not Fumanguru’s son?”

“Why would he have a secret son?”

“Why does Bunshi call him a son?”

“I don’t know.”

“Forget money or goods. People trade only lies in these parts.” He said this looking straight at me.

“Or people only tell you what they think you need to know,” I said.

He looked around for a while, at everybody on the fish, for a good while at the Ogo, who went back to sleep, then back at me.

“Is that all?”

“Is that not enough?”

“If you think so.”

“Fuck the gods, cat. Something has curdled between us.”

“This is what you think.”

“This is what I know. And it has happened in the quick. But I think it’s your Fumeli. He was but a joke to you only days ago. Now you two pull closer and I am your enemy.”

“Me pulling him closer, as you say, makes you my enemy.”

“That is not what I said.”

“It is what you meant.”

“Not that either. You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I sound like—”

“Him.”

He laughed and sat back down beside Fumeli, drawing up his legs to his chest as the boy did.

Daylight ran away from us. I watched it go. Venin was by Sogolon, watching her, sometimes watching the river, sometimes drawing her feet together when she saw she sat on skin, not ground. Everybody else slept, stared into the river, watched sky, or minded their own business.

We came to the shore in the evening. How much time was left for sun, I did not know. The Ogo woke up. Sogolon left the fish first, walking with her horse. The girl, right behind her, grabbed Sogolon’s robe tight, afraid to be even arm’s length away, maybe more because of the oncoming dark. The Ogo wobbled off, still sleepy. The Leopard said something at which Fumeli laughed. He swung his head left and right, then rubbed the boy’s cheek with his forehead. He grabbed the reins of the boy’s horse and walked right past me. Following him, Fumeli said, “Looking out for the date feeder?”

I squeezed my knuckles and let him pass. The girl Venin walked right beside Sogolon as did Bunshi, the fins in the back of her head disappearing. Only a hundred paces from us there it was, rising out of mist so heavy it rested on the ground, with trees tall as mountains and long branches splayed like broken fingers. Huddled together, sharing secrets. So dark green it was blue.

The Darklands.

I have been here before.

We stood and looked at the forest. The Darklands was something mothers told children; a bush of ghosts and monsters, both lie and truth. A day stood between us and Mitu. To go around the Darklands took three or four days and had its own dangers. The forest had something I could never describe, not to them about to go in. Woodpeckers tapped out a beat, telling birds far away that we approach. One tree pushed past the others as if to catch sun. It looked surrounded. Fewer leaves than the other trees, exposing branches spread out wide like a fan, though the trunk was thin. The Darklands was already infecting me.

“Stinkwood,” Sogolon said. “Stinkwood, yellowwood, ironwood, woodpecker, stinkwood, yellowwood, ironwood, woodpecker, stinkwood, yellowwood—”

Sogolon fell back. Her head jerked left like somebody slapped her, then right. I heard the slap. Everyone heard the slap. Sogolon fell and shook, then stopped, then shook, then shook again, then grabbed her belly and snarled something in a language that I have heard in the Darklands. The girl holding her robe fell with her. She looked at me, her eyes wide open, about to scream. Sogolon stood up but air slapped her down again. I drew my hatchets, the Ogo squeezed his knuckles, the Leopard changed, and Fumeli drew his bow. The Leopard’s bow. The Sangoma’s enchantment was still on me, and I could feel it the way one feels the sharp cold on the air of a coming storm. Sogolon staggered away, almost falling twice. Bunshi went after her.

“Madness has taken her,” the Leopard said.

“Cannot bind these and cover those,” Sogolon said in a whisper, but we heard her.

“She is old. Madness take her and gone away,” said Fumeli.

“If she is a madwoman, then you are dim-witted and young,” I said.

Bunshi tried to grab her but she pushed her away. Sogolon fell to her knees. She grabbed a stick and started drawing runes in the sand. In between what looked like someone punching her and slapping her she scratched them in the dirt. The Ogo had enough. He pulled on his iron gloves and stomped to her, but Bunshi stopped him, saying his fists cannot help us here. Sogolon marked, and scratched, and dug, and brushed dirt with her fingers, making runes in the dirt and falling back and cursing until she made a circle around her. She stood up and dropped the stick. Something moved through the air and dashed at her. We couldn’t see it, only hear the wind. Also this, the sound of something hitting, like sacks thrown against a wall, one, then three, then ten, then a rain of hits. Hitting against a wall of nothing all around Sogolon. Then nothing.

“Darklands,” Sogolon said. “Is the Darklands. All of them feeling stronger here. Taking liberties like they get passage from the underworld.”

“Who?” I asked.

Sogolon was about to speak, but Bunshi raised her hand.

“Dead spirits who never liked death. Spirits who think Sogolon can help them. They surround her with requests, and become furious when she says no. The dead should stay dead.”

“And they were all lying in wait at the mouth of the Darklands?” I asked.

“Many things lie in wait here,” Sogolon said. Not many people hold her stare, but I was not many people.

“You are lying,” I said.

“They are dead, that’s no lie.”

“I’ve been around those desperate for help, living and dead. They may grab you, hold you, and force you to look, may even pull you down to where they died, but none slap you around like a husband.”

“They are dead and that’s no lie.”

“But the witch is responsible and that’s no lie either.”

“Zogbanu is hunting you. There are more.”

“But these spirits on this shore are hunting her.”

“Think you know me. You know nothing,” Sogolon said.

“I know the next time you forget to write runes on sky or in dirt they will knock you off your horse or push you off a cliff. I know you do it every night. I wonder how you sleep. Tana kasa tano dabo.”

Both Bunshi and Sogolon stared at me. I looked at the others and said, “If it is ground, it is magic.”

“Enough. Nowhere is where this is taking us. You need to get to Mitu, then Kongor,” Bunshi said.

Sogolon grabbed her horse’s bridle, mounted, then pulled the girl up. “We go around the forest,” she said.

“That will take three days, four if the wind is against you,” the Leopard said.

“Still, we gone.”

“No one is stopping you,” Fumeli said.

I wanted nothing in the world as much as I wanted to slap this boy. But I did not want to go into the Darklands either.

“She is right,” I said. “There are things in the Darklands that will find us, even if we are not looking for them. They will be looking for—”

“It is less than a day through this silly bush,” the Leopard said.

“It is never less anything in there. You have never been.”

“There you go again, Tracker, thinking whatever has beaten you shall beat me,” the Leopard said.

“We go around,” I said, and turned for my horse. The Leopard mumbled something.

“What?”

“I said, Some men think they have become lord over me.”

“Why would I seek to be your lord? Why would anybody, cat?”

“We go through the forest. It is only trees and bush.”

“What is this ill spirit in you all of a sudden? I said I have been to the Darklands. It’s a place of bad enchantments. You stop being yourself. You won’t even know what that self is.”

“Self is what men tell themselves they are. I am just a cat.”

His rudeness made no sense and I have seen him at his most brash. It was too quick, like some boil hidden for years that just burst. Then the boil opened his mouth.

“Through the Darklands in one day. Around the lands is three days. Any man with sense would make the choice,” Fumeli said.

“Well, man and boy, choose whatever you want. We go round,” I said.

“The only way forward is through, Tracker.”

He grabbed the horse and started walking. Fumeli followed.

“Everyone finds what they are looking for in the Darklands. Unless you are what they are looking for,” I said.

But they were no longer looking. Then the Ogo started to follow them.

“Sadogo, why?” I asked.

“Maybe he thinking he tired of your fat verse,” Fumeli said. “Everyone finds what they are looking for in the Darklands. You sound like those men with white hair and shriveled skin, who think they talking wise when they just talking old.”

The Ogo turned to answer but I cut him off, although I should have let him explain for days. At least that would have kept him from following them.

“Never mind. Do what you have to,” I said.

“Seems like the boy finds his use,” Sogolon said, then rode off with the girl.

I mounted my horse and followed her. The painted girl held on to Sogolon’s sides, her right cheek resting on her back. Evening was running after us, and doing it in the quick. Sogolon stopped.

“Your men, any of them ever travel through the Darklands?”

“The Leopard said it’s only bush.”

“None of them ever go before, not even the giant?”

“The Ogo. Ogos do not like to be called giant.”

“His small brain is all that is saving him.”

“Make your meaning clear, woman.”

“I clear as river water. They not going to reach the other side.”

“They will if they stay on the path.”

“You already forget. That is what the forest hoping you do.”

“They will have much to tell us on the other side.”

“They not going to reach the other side.”

“What is this bush?” the painted girl said.

“Do you not have a name?”

“Venin, I told you.”

“You going back for your friends?” Sogolon asked.

“They are not my friends.”

I looked at her and Venin, and the sky.

“Where is Bunshi?”

Sogolon laughed. “How long you going take to find the missing if you take this long to notice the gone?”

“I don’t track the goings and comings of witches.”

“Will you go for them?”

“None would show me gratitude for it.”

“Gratitude is what you seeking? You come cheap.”

She grabbed the reins.

“You wish to save them, save them. Or don’t. What a band of fellows this turn into. Bunshi and her fellowship of men, which is why it fail before it even begin. Cannot make fellowship with men. A man alive is just a man in the way. Maybe we meet again in Mitu, if not Kongor.”

“You say that as if I am going back.”

“I will see you or I will not. Trust the gods.”

Sogolon rode off in a gallop. I did not follow.