Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Dark Star Trilogy)

TWELVE

Flying outside my window was the flag of the black sparrow hawk. My return to Kongor disturbed no one, my waking earlier than the sun caught nobody, so I went outside. The flag flew two hundred, maybe three hundred paces away, at the top of a tower in the center of the Nyembe quarter, flapping wild, as if the wind was furious with it. Black sparrow hawk. Seven Wings. The sun was hiding behind clouds fat with rain. It was near the season. So I went outside.

In the courtyard, pulling up the few shrubs from the dirt, stood a buffalo. Male, brown-black, body longer than one and a half of me lying flat, his horns already fused into a crown and dipping downward to curve back upward like a grand hairstyle. Except I have seen a buffalo kill three hunters and rip a lion in two. So I gave this buffalo wide space as I walked to the archway. He looked up and moved right into my way. I remembered again I needed new hatchets, not that either hatchet or knife could win against him. I did not smell urine; I was not stepping into his boundary. The buffalo did not snort and did not kick his hooves in the dirt, but he stared at me, from my feet all the way up to my neck, then down, then up, then down, then up and slowly annoying me. Buffalos cannot laugh but I would swear to the gods that he did. Then he shook his head. More than a nod, a rough swing left then right, then right and left again. I stepped aside and walked but he stepped right in my way. I moved to the other side and so did he. He looked up and down again and again and I would again swear to the gods, demons, and river spirits that he laughed. He came in closer, and stepped back once. If he wanted to kill me I would have been walking with the ancestors already. He came closer, hooked his horn in the curtain I wore, and pulled it off, making me spin and fall. I cursed the buffalo, but did not grab the curtain. Besides, it was early morning—who would see me? And if anyone did see me, I could claim that I was robbed by bandits as I bathed in the river. Ten paces past the arch I looked back and saw that the buffalo followed me.

Here is truth: The Buffalo was the greatest of companions. In Kongor even old women slept late, so the only souls on the street were those who never slept. Palm wine drunkards and masuku beer fools, falling down more than they got up. My eye jumped over to their side each time we passed one of them, looking at them looking at a near-naked man walking alongside a buffalo not the way some walked with dogs, but how men walked with men. A man flat on his back in the road turned, saw us, jumped up, and ran right into a wall.

The river had flooded the banks four nights before we came, and Kongor was an island again for four moons. I marked my chest and legs with river clay, and the buffalo, lying in the grass and grazing, nodded up and down. I painted around my left eye, up to my hair and down to the cheekbone.

“Where are you from, good buffalo?”

He turned his head west and pointed with his horns up and down.

“West? By the Buki River?”

He shook his head.

“Beyond? In the savannah? Is there good water to be had there, buffalo?”

He shook his head.

“Is that why you roam? Or is there another reason?”

He nodded yes.

“Were you called upon by that fucking witch?”

He shook his head.

“Were you called upon by Sogolon?”

He nodded yes.

“When we were dead—”

He looked up and snorted.

“By dead I mean not dead, I mean when Sogolon was of a mind we were dead. She must have found others. Are you one of her others?”

He nodded yes.

“And already you have sharp thoughts about how I dress. I must say you are a particular buffalo.”

He went off in the bush, his tail whipping flies. I heard a man’s heavy footsteps through the grass fifty paces away and sat by the banks, my feet in the river. He moved closer; I pulled my dagger but did not turn around. The cold iron of a blade touched my right shoulder.

“Nasty boy, how you deh manage the things?” he asked.

“Deh managing them fine,” I said, mocking his tongue.

“You lost? You look like is so.”

“That be how me look?”

“Well, partner, you trotting round here, no robes on your person, like you mad or you a boy-lover, or a father-fucker or what?”

“I just washing my foot in the river.”

“So you looking for the boy-lovers quarter.”

“Just washing my foot in the river.”

“For the boy-lovers quarter, that be, it be where now? Hold that bridle. We has no boy-lovers quarter round here.”

“Eh? You sure you talking true? ’Cause last time me in the boy-lovers quarter, my eyes peep your father, and your grandfather.”

He slapped the side of my head with his club. “Get up,” he said. At least he wasn’t about to slay me without a fight. On his back he strapped two axes.

Shorter than me by almost a head, but in the white bottom and black top of a Seven Wing. My first thought was to ignore his anger and ask why the Seven Wings assemble, since not even the wise Sogolon knows. He then said something to me in a thicker voice than before.

“Dats what we going do with men laka you?” this wing said.

“What?”

“Who you want me to send your head to, boy-fucker?”

“You wrong.”

“How me wrong?”

“About me being the boy-fucker. Most time is the boys who fuck me. Hark, but there was this one, best in many a moon, so tight believe you me I has to stuff a corncob up to ease the hole. Then I ate the corn.”

“Me chop off your bolo first, and then your head, then throw the rest of you in the river. How you liking that? And when you parts flow down de river, people going say luku laka pon the boy-fucker shoga rolling down in the river, don’t drink from the river lest you become boy-fucker too.”

“Chop me with those axes? I have been looking for iron as fine as such. Forged by a Wakadishu blacksmith or did you steal them from a butcher’s wife?”

“Drop the knife.”

I looked at this man, not much taller than a boy, confusing stout with muscular and dashing shit on my quiet morning. I dropped the dagger in my hand and the one strapped to my leg.

“I would love to greet this sun and bid it good-bye without killing a man,” I said. “There are some people above the sand sea who have a feast every year where they leave a space empty for a ghost, a man who was once alive.”

He laughed, pointing the club at me with his left hand, and pulling an ax with his right. Then he dropped the club and pulled out the left ax.

“Maybe me should be doing the killing for you mad tongue, and not you perverse ways.”

He waved his axes in front of me, swinging and swirling them, but I did not move. The mercenary stepped forward just as a wad of something hit the back of his neck.

“Aunt of a donkey!”

He swung around just as the buffalo snorted again, and nose juice hit the warrior in the face. Eye-to-eye with the buffalo, he jumped. Before he could swing an ax, the buffalo scooped up the warrior with his horns and threw him off far into the grass. One ax landed in the field. The other came straight at me but bounced off. I cursed the buffalo. It was some time before the warrior sat up, shook his head, rose to his feet, and staggered off when the buffalo rushed him again.

“You took your time. I could have made bread.”

He trotted off and slapped me with his tail as he passed. I laughed and picked up my new axes.

The house had woken up by the time I got back. The buffalo stooped in the grass and sunk his head on the ground. I said he was as lazy as an old grandmother and he swished his tail at me. In a corner near the center doorway sat Sogolon, and a man I assumed was the lord of the house. Bisabol blew out of him, expensive perfume from lands above the sand sea. A white wrap around his head and under his chin, thin enough that I could see his skin. A white gown with a pattern of the millet plant, and over that a coat, coffee dark.

“Where is the girl?” I asked.

“Down some street, annoying some woman, because clothes remain something that fascinates her. Truly, old friend, she never ever seen the like,” Sogolon said.

The man nodded before I realized she was not speaking to me. He took a puff of his pipe, then handed it to her. The smoke from her mouth I would have taken for a cloud, it was so thick. She had drawn six runes in the dirt with a stick and was scratching a seventh.

“And how is the Tracker managing Kongor?” he asked, though he still did not look at me. I thought he was speaking to Sogolon in that rude way men who are rich and powerful can speak about you right in front of you. Too early in the day to make men test you, I said to myself.

“He not one for the Kongori custom to cover his snake,” Sogolon said.

“Indeed. They whipped a woman … seven days ago? No, eight, it was. They found her leaving the house of a man not her husband without her outer robes.”

“What did they do with the man?” I said.

“What?”

“The man, was he whipped as well?”

The man looked at me as if I had just spoken in one of the river tongues even I don’t know.

“When do we go to the house?” I said to Sogolon.

“You didn’t go last night?”

“Not to Fumanguru’s.”

She turned away from me, but I would not be flashed off by these two.

“This grand peace is walking on a crocodile’s back, Sogolon. Is not just Kongor and is not just Seven Wings. Men who don’t fight since the Prince was just born are getting word that they must reach for armour and weapon, and assemble. Seven Wings assemble in Mitu as well, and other warriors under other names. The Malakal you left, and the Uwomowomowomowo valley, both now gleam from the iron and gold of armour, spear, and sword,” the man said.

“And ambassadors roam each city. Sweat not from heat but from worry,” she said.

“This I know. Five days ago four men from Weme Witu come for talks, for all come to Kongor to settle disputes. Nobody see them since.”

“What they disputing?”

“What they dispute? Not like you to get deaf ears to the movement of people.”

She laughed.

“Here is a true thing. Years before this skinny boy’s mother spread her koo to piss him out, right before they mark the peace on paper and iron, the South retreat back to the South.”

“Yes, yes, yes. They retreat south, but not full south,” Sogolon said.

“The old Kwash Netu give them back a bone. Wakadishu after conquering it.”

“I was just in Kalindar and Wakadishu.”

“But Wakadishu never liked that arrangement, not at all. They say Kwash Netu betray them, he sell them back to slavery under the southern King. They been bawling for years upon years and this new King—”

“Kwash Dara looking like he hear,” she said.

“And all this movement up north making the South rumble. Sogolon, word be that the mad King’s head is again infected with devils.”

This was annoying me more and more. Both were saying things the other already knew. Not even discussing, or reasoning or arguing or repeating, but finishing each other’s thoughts, like they were talking to each other but still not to me.

“Earth and sky already hear enough,” Sogolon said.

“You talk of kings and wars and rumors of war as if anybody cares. You’re just a witch, here to find a boy. As is everybody, except him,” I said, pointing to the lord. “Does he even know why we’re under his roof? See, I too can talk around a man as if he’s not there.”

“You said he have a nose, not a mouth,” the lord said.

“We waste time talking about politics,” I said, and walked past them inside.

“No one speaks to you,” Sogolon said, but I did not turn back.

Upstairs one floor, the Leopard came towards me. I couldn’t read his face, but this was a long time coming. So let us have it out, with words or fists or knives and claws, and whoever is left let him have at the boy, you to fuck him, me to beat him with a shit stick, and send him right back to whatever thing shat him out. Yes, let us have this. The Leopard ran up, almost knocking over two of the dozen statues and carvings in the hallway, and embraced me.

“Good Tracker, I feel I have not seen you in days.”

“It has been days. You couldn’t pull yourself out of sleep.”

“This is a true word. I feel as if I was sleeping for years. And I wake to such dismal rooms. Come now, what sport is there in this city?”

“Kongor? In a city pious as this even the mistresses seek marriage.”

“I already love it. Yet is there not some other reason we are here? We hunt a boy, do we not?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember and I do not.”

“You remember the Darklands?”

“We went through the Darklands?”

“You were one for harsh words.”

“Harsh? To whom? Fumeli? You know he likes when we spar. Are you not hungry? I saw a buffalo outside and thought to kill it, or at least bite off the tail, but he seems an ingenious buffalo.”

“This is very strange, Leopard.”

“Tell me at the table. What happened these few days since we left the valley?”

I told him we were gone a moon. He said that was madness and refused to hear any more.

“I hear the gap in my belly. It growls obscene,” he said.

This table was in a great hall, with plate after plate of scenes covering all the walls in the room. I got to the tenth plate before I saw that these works of the grand bronze masters all showed scenes of fucking.

“This is strange,” I said again.

“I know. I keep looking for one where the cock goes in the mouth hole or the boo hole but I couldn’t find any. But I hear this is a town of no shoga. How could that be tru—”

“No. It’s strange that you remember nothing. The Ogo remembers everything.”

The Leopard, being a Leopard, ignored the chairs and jumped up on the table, not making a sound. He grabbed the bird leg from a silver tray, crouched on his heels, and bit into it. I could tell he did not like it. Leopards eat all things, but there was no rush of blood, hot and rich, spilling into his mouth and over his lips as he bit into it, which always made him frown.

“You are the one strange, Tracker, with your riddles and half meanings. Sit, eat porridge while I eat—what is this, ostrich? I’ve never had ostrich, could never catch one. You said the Ogo is remembering?”

“Yes.”

“What does he remember? Being in the enchanted bush? I remember that.”

“What else?”

“A great slumber. Traveling but not moving. A long scream. What does the Ogo remember?”

“Everything, it seems. His whole life came back to him. Do you remember when we set out? You had a problem with me.”

“We must have solved it, for I do not remember it.”

“If you heard yourself, you would not have thought so.”

“You are confusing, Tracker. I sit and eat with you, and there is love between us that until now was the kind we never had to declare. So stop living in a squabble so little that I cannot remember it, even with you prompting me. When do we go to the boy’s house? Shall we go now?”

“Yesterday you wer—”

“Kwesi!” his arrow boy shouted, and dropped the basket he was carrying. Maybe I did forget his name out of spite. He came over to the table, not looking or even nodding at me.

“You are not well enough to be eating strange things,” he said to the Leopard.

“Here is meat and here is bone. Nothing is strange.”

“Go back to the room.”

“I am well.”

“You are not.”

“Are you deaf?” I said. “He said he is well.”

Fumeli tried to glare at me and fuss over the Leopard with the same face, but it came out as him fussing a little over me and glaring a little at the Leopard. Even when it was not funny, this boy provoked me to laugh. He stomped off, grabbing his basket on the way out. One of his little parcels fell out. Cured pig, I could smell it. Supplies. The Leopard sat down on the table and crossed his legs.

“I should lose him soon.”

“You should have lost him moons ago,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing, Leopard. There are things I must tell you. Not here. I do not trust these walls. Truly there are some strange things here.”

“You’ve said this four times now. Why is everything strange, friend?”

“The black puddle woman.”

“It’s these statues that bother me. I feel like an army is going to watch me fuck at night.”

He grabbed one of the statues by the neck, and grinned that wide smile I couldn’t remember when last I saw.

“This one the most,” he said.

“Grab your bird,” I said.

We wrapped our waists in cloths and walked south to Gallunkobe/Matyube. The freemen and slave quarter, also the poorest, except for vulgar houses that spread wide instead of tall for freemen with much coin, but no noble air. Most of the houses were one room or hall, and packed so tight that they shared the same roof. Not even a rat could squeeze between each wall. The towers and roofs of the Nyembe quarter made it look like a huge fort or a castle, but no towers rose in this quarter. Freemen and slaves had no need to watch anyone, but everyone needed to watch them. And despite having the most men and women sleeping there at night, by day it was the emptiest quarter, freemen and slaves at work in the other three.

“When did Bunshi tell you such a story?”

“When? Good cat, you were there.”

“I was? I don’t … yes I do remember … memory comes forth, then slips away.”

“Memory must be one of them who heard what you do in bed.”

He chuckled.

“But, Tracker, I remember it as if somebody told me, not as if I was there. I have no smell of it. So strange.”

“Yes, strange. Whatever that Fumeli makes you smoke, stop smoking such.”

I was happy to talk to the Leopard, as I always am, and I did not want to bring up the sourness of the days past—one moon past, a fact that staggered him every time I said it. I think I know why. Time is flat to all animals; they measure it in when to eat, when to sleep, when to breed, so missed time to him feels a board with a huge hole punched out.

“The slaver said the boy was his partner’s son, now an orphan. Men kidnapped the boy from his housekeeper and murdered all others in that house. Then he said the house belonged to his aunt, not his housekeeper. Then we saw him and Nsaka Ne Vampi try to pry information out of the lightning girl, who we set free but then she jumped off a cliff and landed in Nyka’s cage.”

“You tell me things I know. Everything but this lightning woman in the cage. And I remember thinking for sure this slaver lies, but not about what.”

“Leopard, that was when Bunshi poured herself down the wall and said the boy was not that boy, but another who was the son of Basu Fumanguru, who was an elder, and on the Night of the Skulls the Omoluzu attacked the house and killed everyone but the boy who was then a baby and who Bunshi hid in her womb to save him, but then she took him to a blind woman in Mitu who she thought she could trust, but the blind woman sold him to a slave market where a merchant bought him, perhaps for his barren wife, but then they were attacked by men of malicious means. A hunter took the boy and now none can find him.”

“Slow, good friend. None of this I remember.”

“And that is not all, Leopard, for I found another elder, who called himself Belekun the Big, who said the family died of river sickness, which was false, but the family was eight, which was true, and of it six were sons and none were just born.”

“What are you saying, Tracker?”

“Do you not remember when I told you this on the lake?”

The Leopard shook his head.

“Belekun was always liar and I had to kill him, especially when he tried to kill me. But he had no reason to lie about this, so Bunshi must have. Yes, Omoluzu killed Basu Fumanguru’s family, and yes, many know this including her, but that the boy we seek was not his son as he had no young sons.”

The Leopard still looked confused. But he raised his brow as if a truth suddenly struck him.

“But, Leopard,” I continued, “I have done some looking and some digging and somebody here in this city also asks of Fumanguru, meaning they asked to be told if somebody asks, which means the closed matter of the dead elder is not so closed, because one thing remains open, this missing boy who is not his son, and though he may not be his son, he is the reason why others search for him and why we search for him and given that Fumanguru was an annoyance but not a real enemy of the King, whoever sent roof walkers to his house was not there to kill the family but was there for the boy, who Fumanguru must have been protecting. They too know he is alive.”

I told the Leopard all this and this is truth, I was more confused by the telling than he was by listening. Only when he repeated all that I said did I understand it. We were still ankle deep in the water when he said, “You know this buffalo stands behind us as we speak.”

“I know.”

“Can we trust him?”

“He looks like a trustworthy beast.”

“If he lies, I will bring him down with my jaws and make supper out of him.”

The buffalo snorted and started kicking up his right front leg in the water.

“He jests,” I said to the buffalo.

“A little,” the Leopard said. “To this man’s house with us. These robes make my balls itch.”

Sadogo sat on the floor in his room, punching his left palm with his right hand and setting off sparks. I stepped into the doorway and stayed there. He saw me.

“There he was. I grabbed his neck and squeezed until his head popped off. And her, her too, I swung this hand, this I hold up right here and slapped her so hard that I broke her neck. Soon the masters would gather seats and men and women who paid cowrie, and corn, and cows to watch me execute women, and children, and men with my hands. Soon they built seats in a circle and charged money and cast bets. Not for who would best me, for no man can ever best an Ogo. But for who would last longest. The children their necks I breaked quick so they would not suffer. This made them mad—who would watch, for they must have it, don’t you see? Don’t you see, they must have show. Curse the gods and fuck them all in the ears and ass, they will have a show, that is what I tell you.”

I knew what would happen. I left the Ogo. He would be talking all night, no matter the misery such talk caused him. Part of me wanted to give him ears, for there was depth there, things he had done that he buried wherever Ogos bury their dead. The Leopard was already grabbing his crotch when he went in the room with Fumeli. Sogolon was gone, and so was the girl and the lord of the house. I wanted to go to Fumanguru’s home, but did not want to go alone.

There was nothing to do but wait on the Leopard. Down the stairs, night crept up without me even seeing it. Kongor plays as a righteous city under sunlight, but turns into what all righteous cities turn into under the dark. Fires lit up patches of the sky, from the Bingingun far off. Drums at times jumped over roofs, and above the road, and shook our windows, while lutes, flute, and horns sneaked in under. I did not see a single man in Bingingun all day. I went out the window and sat in the sill, looking across to rooms with flickering lights, few, and rooms already dark, many. Fumeli, wearing a rug, walked past me carrying a lamp. He returned shortly after, passing me again carrying a wineskin. I followed him, ten and two or so paces behind. He left the door open.

“Grab your bow, or at least a good sword. No, make it daggers, we go with daggers,” I said.

The Leopard rolled around in the bed. On his back he snatched the wineskin from Fumeli, who did not look at me.

“You drink palm wine now?”

“I’ll drink blood if I wish,” he said.

“Leopard, time is not something we have to lose. Kwesi.”

“Fumeli, tell me this. Is it ill wind blowing under that window, or is it you speaking in a tone that sours me?”

Fumeli laughed quiet.

“Leopard, what is this?”

“What is this indeed? What is this? What is this, Tracker? What. Is. This?”

“This is about the house of the boy. The house that we are going to visit. The house that might tell us where he went.”

“We know where he’s gone. Nyka and that bitch of his already found him.”

“How do you know? Some drums told you? Or a little whore whispered something before sunset?”

A growl, but from Fumeli, not him.

“I go to only one place, Tracker. I go to sleep.”

“You plan to find him in dreams? Or maybe you plan to send your little maiden here.”

“Get out,” Fumeli said.

“No no no. You do not speak to me. And I only speak to him.”

“And if the him is me, then I say, you don’t speak to him or me,” the Leopard said.

“Leopard, are you mad or is this some game to you? Are there two children in this room?”

“I’m not a chil—”

“Shut up, boy, by all the gods I’ll—”

The Leopard jumped up. “By all the gods you will … what?”

“What is this relapse? First you are hot then you are cold, you are one thing, and then you are another. Is this little bitch bewitching you? I don’t care. We go now and argue later.”

“We leave tomorrow.”

The Leopard walked over to the window. Fumeli sat up in the bed, stealing looks at me.

“Oh. So we are in these waters again,” I said.

“How funny you talk,” Fumeli said. In my mind my hands were at his throat.

“Yes. In those waters, as you’ve said. We go our own way to find the boy tomorrow. Or we don’t. Either way we leave here,” the Leopard said.

“I told you about the boy. Why we need to find—”

“You tell me many things, Tracker. Not much of it any use. Now please go where you came from.”

“No. I will find what is this madness.”

“Madness, Tracker, is you thinking I would ever work with you. I can’t even stand drinking with you. Your envy stinks, did you know it stinks? It stinks as much as your hate.”

“Hate?”

“It confused me once.”

“You’re confused.”

“But then I realized that you are full from head to toe with nothing but malcontent. You cannot help yourself. You even fight it, sometimes well. Enough for me to let you lead me astray.”

“Fuck the gods, cat, we are working together.”

“You work with no one. You had plans—”

“To what, take the money?”

“You said it, not I. Did you hear him say it, Fumeli?”

“Yes.”

“Shut that fucking ass mouth, boy.”

“Leave us,” said the Leopard.

“What did you do to him?” I said to Fumeli. “What did you do?”

“Other than open my eyes? I don’t think Fumeli seeks credit. He’s not you, Tracker.”

“You don’t even sound—”

“Like myself?”

“No. You don’t even sound like a man. You’re a boy whose toys Father took away.”

“There’s no mirror in this room.”

“What?”

“Leave, Tracker.”

“Fuck the gods and fuck this little shit.”

I jumped at Fumeli. Leapt onto the bed and grabbed his neck. He slapped at me, the little bitch in him too weak to do anything else, and I squeezed. “I knew you consulted with witches,” I said. A big, black hairy mess knocked me down and I hit my head hard. The Leopard, full black and one with the dark, scratched my face with his paw. I grabbed at his neck skin, and we rolled over and over on the floor. I punched at him and missed. He ducked right down to my head and clamped his jaws on my neck. I couldn’t breathe. He clamped and swung his head, to break my neck.

“Kwesi!”

The Leopard dropped me. I wheezed air and coughed up spit.

The Leopard growled at me, then roared, almost as loud as a lion. It was a “get out” kind of roar. Get out and don’t come back.

I headed for the door, wiping my wet neck. Spit and a little blood.

“Don’t be here tomorrow,” I said. “Neither of you.”

“We don’t take orders from you,” Fumeli said. The Leopard paced by the window, still a Leopard.

“Don’t be here tomorrow,” I said again.

I went to the Ogo’s room.

Bingingun. This is what I learned from the Kongori and why they hate nakedness. To wear only skin is to wear the mind of a child, the mind of the mad, or even the mind of the man with no role in society, even lower than usurers and trinket sellers, for even such as they have their use. Bingingun is how people of the North set a place for the dead among the living. Bingingun is the masquerade, drummers and dancers and singers of great oriki. They wear the aso oke cloth underneath, and this cloth is white with indigo stripes, and looks like that with which we clothe the dead. They wear net on the face and hands, for now they will be masquerade, not men with names. When the Bingingun spins and makes a whirlwind the ancestors possess them. They jump high as roofs.

He who makes the costume is an amewa, a knower of beauty, for if you know the Kongori they view everything through the eye of what is beautiful. Not ugly, for that has no value, especially ugliness of character. And not too beautiful, for that is a skeleton in disguise. Bingingun is made from the best of fabrics, red, and pink, and gold, and blue, and silver, all trimmed in cowries and coins, for there is power in the beauty. In patterns, braids, sequins, tassels, and amulets with medicine. Bingingun in dance, Bingingun in march, make for transformation into the ancestors. All this I learned on my travels, for Juba has masquerade, but they are not Bingingun.

I said all this to the Ogo because we followed a procession on the way to the house so that a man as tall as he would not look strange in the torchlight. He still looked strange. Five drummers in front setting the dance—three beating barrel drums, a fourth beating a double-skin bata, and the fifth beating four small bata tied together to make a sound pitched high like a crow call. Following the drummers came the Bingingun, among them the Ancestor King in royal robes and a cowrie veil, and the Trickster, whose robes turned inside out to another robe, and yet another robe, as the Bingingun all swirled and stomped to the drum, boom-boom-bakalak-bakalaka, bakalakalakalaka-boom-boom-boom. Ten and five of this clan shuffled to the left then stomped, then shuffled to the right and hopped. I said all this to the Ogo so that he would not start talking again of whom he had killed with his hands and how there is nothing in this world or the next like the sound of the crushing of skull. Sadogo’s face was lost to me in the dark, and as he stood taller than the torches, he waved his hands in the air with the Bingingun, marched when they marched, and stopped when they stopped.

Here is truth. I did not know which house was Fumanguru’s, other than that it was in the Tarobe quarter, north of the Nimbe boundary, and that it would be almost hidden by massive growths of thornbush. I said, “Good Ogo, let us look. Let us walk street to street, and stop by which house burns no light and hides in branches that will prick and cut us.”

Outside the fourth house Sadogo grabbed a torch from the wall. At the ninth house I smelled it, the fire stink of sulfur, still fresh in its scent after so many years. Most of the houses on this street stacked themselves tight beside each other, but this stood apart, now an island of thornbush. Larger than the other houses, from how it looked in the dark, the bush had grown wide and tall, reaching all the way up the front door.

We went around the back. The Ogo was still quiet. He wore his gloves, not listening when I said they were no use against the dead. Look at how they failed to save you from Ogudu, I thought, but did not say. He tore away the branches until it was safe to climb. We jumped the back wall and landed in a thick blanket of grass. Wild grass left to grow tall, some of it to my waist. Omoluzu had without a doubt been here. Only plants that grew off the dead grew here.

We stood in the courtyard, right beside the grain keep, with millet and sorghum gone sour from getting wet from many rains, caked with rat shit and fresh with rat pups. The house, a cluster of dwellings, five points like a star, was not what I expected in Kongor. Fumanguru was no Kongori. Sadogo placed the torch in the dirt and lit up the whole courtyard.

“Spoiled meat, fresh shit, dead dog? I can’t tell,” the Ogo said.

“All three, perhaps,” I said.

I pointed to the first dwelling on the right. Sadogo nodded and followed. This first dwelling told me how I would find the rest. Everything left the way Omoluzu left it. Stools broken, jars crushed, tapestry ripped down, rugs and clothes torn and thrown about. I grabbed a blanket. Hidden in the smell of dirt and rain two boys, the youngest, perhaps, but the smell went as far as the wall and died. All the dead smell the same, but sometimes their living smell can take you to the point where they died.

“Sadogo, how do the Kongori bury their dead?”

“Not in the earth. In urns, too big for this room.”

“If they had a choice. Fumanguru’s family might have been dumped somewhere, appalling the gods. Maybe burned?”

“Not the Kongori,” he said. “They believe burning a body frees into air what killed him.”

“How do you know?”

“I killed a few. This was how it went. I—”

“Not now, Sadogo.”

We went to the next room, which, judging by the Mojave wood bed, must have been Fumanguru’s. His wall was all scenes—hunting, mostly—carved into the wood. Shattered statues and books on the floor, and loose paper as well, probably torn out of the books. Omoluzu would not have cared, but the third, fourth, and fifth person to visit this room would have, including Sogolon, whom I smelled since we stepped into the master room, but I did not tell the Ogo. I wondered if, unlike the others who had been here, she found what she was looking for.

“Word was that Basu Fumanguru wrote many writs against the King. Twenty or thirty articles in total, some with testimony to his wrongdoing from subjects, and nobles, and princes he wronged. There was a man who I had words with. He said that people searched for the writs, and that is why he was killed. But what little I know of Fumanguru tells me he is no fool. Also surely he would wish his words to not die with him,” I said.

“These writs are not here?”

“No. Not only that, good Ogo, but I don’t think that is what people were looking for. Remember the boy? Bunshi said she saved him.”

A sword glimmered on the floor. I hated swords now. Too bulky, too much force against wind when it should be working with her, but I took it up anyway. It was halfway in its sheath. I would need to come back under sunlight, for I had nothing now to guide me but my nose. A man was all over this room, Fumanguru perhaps, and a woman too, but their smells ended in this room, meaning they were dead. Outside, I turned to the room beside another dwelling for servants and the youngest children. I could tell that whoever buried the family either did not see or did not care that a servant was under the broken wood and torn rugs. All that was left lying there was her bones, still together, but flesh all eaten away. I stepped in and the Ogo followed me. His head scraped the ceiling. I grinned, tripped over an overturned urn, and fell hard. Fuck the gods, I said, even though a pile of cloths broke my fall. Robes. Even in the dark I could tell their luxury. Gold trim, but thin fabric, so the wife’s. This must be where the servant kept clothes dried after a wash. But there was fragrance in the thin robe that no wash could wash out. Frankincense. It took me out of this room and back into the master’s room and then out into the middle of the courtyard and back into the large room beside the grain keep.

“They’re in there, Sadogo.”

“Under earth?”

“No. In urns.”

With no windows, this room was the darkest, but thank the gods for the strength of the Ogo. He pulled the lid off the largest, which I assumed was Basu, but the frankincense still there told me it was the wife.

“Sadogo, your torch.”

He stood up and fetched it. In the urn, there she was, body curled wrong, with her back touching the soles of her feet. Her skull rested in her hair, her bones peeking out of the fabric.

“They broke her back?” Sadogo said.

“No, they cut her in two.”

The second urn, smaller but bigger than the others, housed Fumanguru. All his bones collected but broken apart. Deep blue robes like a king’s. Whoever buried them stole nothing, for surely they would have taken so luxurious a robe, even off a man diseased. His face bones were smashed, which happened when Omoluzu ripped off a face to wear it. Another large urn housed two children, a small urn housed one. The small child’s bones in the small urn now almost powder, except for his arms and ribs. Like the others, he smelled of long-passed death and fading fragrance. Nothing to preserve or mummify the bodies, which meant the story of infection had spread. I nodded at Sadogo to cover the last urn when just a little thing winked at me.

“The torch again, Sadogo.”

I looked up, just as the Ogo wiped a tear from his cheek. He was thinking of killed children, but not this one.

“What is that he’s holding?” I asked.

“Parchment? A piece of clay?”

I grabbed it. Cloth, simple as aso oke fabric, but not. I pulled at it, but the boy would not let go. He died with this, his last show of defiance, the poor, brave child. I halted the thought before it went further. One more pull and it was free. A piece of blue cloth torn from something bigger. The boy was wrapped in white. I put the cloth to my nose and one year of sun, night, thunder, and rain, hundreds of days of walks, dozens of hills, valleys, sands, seas, houses, cities, plains. Smell so strong it became sigh, and hearing and touch. I could reach out and touch the boy, grab him in my mind and reel from him being so far away. Too far away, my head rushing and jumping and sinking below sea then flying higher and higher and higher and smelling air free of smoke. Smell pushing me, pulling me, dragging me through jungles, tunnels, birds, ripped flesh, flesh-eater insects, shit, piss, and blood. Blood rushed into me. So much blood my eyes went red, then black.

So gone I thought you would never return,” Sadogo said.

I rolled on my side and sat up.

“How long?”

“Not long but deep like in sleep. Your eye was milk white. I thought demons were in your head, but no froth came to your mouth.”

“It happens only when I am not expecting it. I smell something and someone’s life comes to me all in a rush. It is a madness, even now when I have learned to master it. But, Ogo, there is something.”

“Another dead body?”

“No, the boy.”

He looked in the urn.

“No, the boy we seek. He is alive. And I know where he is.”