Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Dark Star Trilogy)

FIFTEEN

A ghost knows who to scare. As the sun glides to noon, men and women grab their children and run home, close windows, and draw curtains, for in Kongor it is noon that is the witching hour, the hour of the beast, when heat cracks the earth open to release seven thousand devils. I have no fear of devils. I went south, then turned west along the border road to the Nimbe quarter. Then I turned south down a crooked street, west down an alley, then south again until I came upon the Great Hall of Records.

Kongor was the record keeper for all the North Kingdom and most of the free states, and the Hall of Records was open to anyone who stated his purpose. But nobody came to these large rooms, five tall floors of scrolls stacked on shelves, stacked on top of each other, as tall as any palace in Kongor. The hall of records was like the palace of clouds in the sky—people were satisfied that it existed without ever entering, ever reading book or paper, or even coming close. On the way there I was hoping to meet a demon, or a spirit of someone who would feed the hunger of my two new axes. I truly wanted a fight.

Nobody was here but an old man with a hunch in his back.

“I seek the records of the great elders. Tax records as well,” I said to the old man. He did not look up from the large maps he stood over.

“Them young people, too hot in the neck, too full in the balls. So this great King who is only great in the echo of his voice, which is to say not great at all, conquers a land and says this land is now mine, redraw the maps, and you young men with papyrus and ink redraw the old map for the new and forget entire lands as if the gods of the underworld tore open a hole in the earth and sucked in the entire territory. Fool, look. Look!”

The library master blew map dust in my face.

“Truth, I know not what I look at.”

He frowned. I could not tell if his hair was white from age or from dust.

“Look in the center. Do you not see it? Are you blind?”

“Not if I see you.”

“Be not rude in this great hall and shame whoever you came out of.”

I tried not to smile. On the table stood five thick candles, one tall and past his head, another so down to the stub that it would set things afire if left alone. Behind him towers and towers of papers, of papyrus, of scrolls and books bound in leather and piled one on top of the other, reaching the ceiling. I was tempted to ask what if he desired a book in the middle. Between the towers were bundles of scrolls and loose papers that fell flat. Dust settled like a cloud right above his head and cats fat on rats scrambled.

“Alert the gods, he is now deaf as well as blind,” the library master said. “Mitu! This master of map arts, which I am sure he calls himself, has forgotten Mitu, the city at the center of the world.”

I looked at the map again. “This map is in a tongue I cannot read.”

“Some of these parchments are older than the children of the gods. Word is divine wish, they say. Word is invisible to all but the gods. So when woman or man write words, they dare to look at the divine. Oh, what power.”

“The tax and household records of the great elders, I seek. Where are—”

He looked at me like a father accepting the disappointment of his son.

“Which great elder do you seek?”

“Fumanguru.”

“Oh? Great is what they call him now?”

“Who says he is not, old man?”

“Not I. I am indifferent to all elders and their supposed wisdom. Wisdom is here.” The library master pointed behind himself without looking.

“That sounds like heresy.”

“It is heresy, young fool. But who will hear it? You are my first visitor in seven moons.”

This old bastard was becoming my favorite person in Kongor who was not a buffalo. Maybe because he was one of the few who did not point to my eye and say, How that? A leather-bound book, on its own pedestal and large as half a man, opened up and from it burst lights and drums. Not now, he shouted, and the book slapped itself back shut.

“The records of the elders are back there. Walk left, go south past the drum of scrolls to the end. Fumanguru will bear the white bird of the elders and the green mark of his name.”

The corridor smelled of dust, paper rot, and cat. I found Fumanguru’s tax records. In the hall, I sat on a stack of books and placed the candle on the floor.

He paid much in tax, and after checking the records of others, including Belekun the Big, I saw he paid more than he needed to. His death wish that his lands be given to his children was written on loose papyrus. And there were many little books bound in smooth leather and hairy cowskin. His journals, his records, or his logs, or perhaps all three. A line here that said keeping cows made no sense in tsetse fly country. Another saying what should we do with our glorious King? And this:

I fear I shall not be here for my children and I shall not be here soon. My head resides in the house of Olambula the goddess who protects all men of noble character. But am I noble?

Here I was wishing I could slap a dead man. The old man had gone silent. But Fumanguru:

Day of Abdula Dura

So Ebekua the elder took me aside and said Fumanguru, I have news from the lands of sky and the chambers of the underworld that made me shiver. The gods have made peace, and so have spirits of nurture and plenty with devils and there is unity in all heavens. I said I do not believe this for it demands of the gods what they are not capable of. Look, the gods cannot end themselves, even the mighty Sagon, when he tried to take his own life only transformed it. For the gods there is nothing to discover, nothing new. Gods are without the gift of surprising themselves, which even we who crawl in the dirt have in abundance. What are our children but people who continue to surprise and disappoint us? Ebekua said to me, Basu I do not know by how this entered your head, but bid it farewell and let us never speak on such things again.

A smaller book, bound in alligator skin, opens with this:

Day of Basa Dura

Oh I should know the will of Kwash Dara? Is that what he thinks? Did he not know that even when we were boys I was my own man?

Five pages more:

Bufa Moon

And nothing until so far down the edge of the page the words nearly fell off:

Tax the elders? A grain tax? Something as essential as air?

Obora Gudda Moon

Day of Maganatti Jarra to Maganatti Britti

He set us free today. The rains would not stop. Work of the gods.

I threw down that book and picked up another, this one in hairy black-and-white cowskin, not shiny leather. The pages were bound in brilliant red thread, which meant this was the most new, even though it was in the middle of the stack. He put it in the middle, surely. He scrambled the order so that no one could build the story of his life too easy, of this I was certain. A cat dashed past me. A flutter over my head and I looked up. Two pigeons flew out a window high up over me.

What are we in, but a year of mad lords?

Sadassaa Moon

Day of Bita Kara

There are men that I have lost all love for, and there are the words I will write in a message I will never send, or in a tongue that they will never read.

Day of Lumasa

What is love for child, if not mania? I look at the magic of my smallest boy and cry, and I look at the muscle and might of the oldest, and grin with a pride that we are warned should be only of the gods. And for them and the four in between, I have a love that scares me. I look at them and I know it, I know it, I know it. I would kill the one who comes to harm my sons. I would kill that one with no mercy and no thought. I would search for that one’s heart and rip the thing out and shove it in their mouth, even if that one is their own mother.

Six sons.

Six sons.

Guraandhala Moon

Day of Garda Duma

The same night Belekun left me alone. All night I wrote. Then these I heard, a whimper, a gruff reply, a scream slapped short, and another gruff reply. Outside my door, four doors down. I pushed it open and there was Amaki the Slippery. His back wet with sweat. I would say too it was the god of iron but it was my own rage that went up in my own head. His Ifa bowl was right there on the floor at his feet. I brought it down on his head. Again and again. He fell on top of the girl, covering her totally.

They will come for me soon. Afuom and Duku said to me, do not worry young brother, we have made arrangements. We shall come for your wife and boys and people will think they vanished like a loose memory.

He was hiding in Kongor.

Six sons.

Between this book and the one below lay a piece of papyrus. I could tell it once had a strong fragrance, like a note sent to a mistress. His own handwriting, but not as rough and rushed as his journal. It said:

A man will suffer misery to get to the bottom of truth, but he will not suffer boredom.

Basu Fumanguru is a man who had been north of the sand sea. I am guessing because of their love for riddles, games, and double-talk, sometimes at the border of a wicked city, where if you guessed wrong they would kill you on sight. Who was this for? Himself or whoever read it? But Fumanguru knew someone would one day. He knew forces were coming for him and had all this moved from before. Nobody took anything from the hall of records, not even the King. Somebody would come looking, maybe for the writs, which nobody could find and that might not even exist. All this talk about writs against the King, as if nobody has ever written in protest of the King. And yet below these journals were no writs, just pages and pages of tallies for tax, how many more cows he’d gained over the year before. Tallies of crop yield in Malakal. And his father’s lands, and a dowry he helped pay for his cousin’s daughter.

Until I came up upon a page, in old papyrus, with lines and boxes and names. The candlelight glowed brighter, which meant outside was darker. No sound came from the keeper, which made me wonder if he had left.

The candle burned slow. At the top of the paper and written very large was Kwash Moki. The King’s great-grandfather’s father. Moki had four sons and two daughters. The oldest son was Kwash Liongo the celebrated King, and under his name, four sons and five daughters. Under Liongo’s name, his third son, Kwash Aduware, who became king, and under him, Kwash Netu. Under Netu are two sons and one daughter. The oldest son is Kwash Dara, our King now. I don’t think I ever knew the King’s sister’s name, before seeing it written there. Lissisolo. She gave her life to serving a goddess, which one I do not know, but a server of the goddess loses her old name for a new one. My landlady said once that the gossip was that she was not a nun but a madwoman. Because her little head could not handle doing a big terrible thing. What this terrible thing was, she did not know. But it was terrible. They sent her to live in a fortress in the mountains with no way in or out so the women who serve her would be also locked away forever. I put the family map aside, still bothered by Fumanguru’s riddle.

Below his map of kings was his handwriting. More tallies, and logs, and other people’s tallies, and other people’s logs, and inventory of the food supplies of all elders, and a list of visits, and more of his journals, some dating years before the ones that were on top. And even two small books on his advice on love, which looks like he wrote it back when he and the King were looking for anything but such. And books empty of words, and pages carrying smells, and drawings of ships, and buildings, and towers taller than Malakal, and a book marking a tale of the forbidden trip to the Mweru, which I opened, only to see glyphs, but not like what I had seen before.

And also these, book after book and page after page on the wisdom and instruction of the elders. Proverbs he heard or created himself, I did not know. And logs of the meeting of the elders, some not even written by him. I cursed him outright and long until wisdom fell on me.

I was suffering through boredom.

Just as he wrote I would, so I did. Then the whole brilliance of his ways hit me like sudden wind blowing a flower in my face. Suffer through boredom to get to truth. No, suffer through boredom to get to the bottom of truth. To get to truth at the bottom.

I grabbed two stacks of books and papers, both as high as my chin, and put them aside, leaving one on the floor. Red leather binding and tied with a knot, which set fire to my curiosity. The pages were empty. I cursed again and almost flung it across the room, until the last page flew up. Where birds come in, it read. I looked up, at the window. Of course. There, in the windowsill, two planks of wood that came loose. I climbed up and moved them aside. Under the wood, a satchel in red leather, all the pages inside, large and loose. I blew the dust off the first page, which read:

Being a writ in the presence of the King

By his most humble servant, Basu Fumanguru.

I looked at this thing that some people have already been killed over. This thing that caused men to scheme and plot; these loose, dirty, and smelly pages that have so far changed the course of many a man’s life. Some demanded punishment in fines and the end to torture for minor offenses. One asked for the property of a dead man to go to his first wife. But one declared this:

That all free men of the lands, those born so, and those who have been given freedom be never enslaved, or enslaved again, nor are their lives commandeered for war without payment to the scale of what they are worth. And this freedom shall also be for their children and their children’s children.

I didn’t know if the king would have killed him over this, but I know many who would. And still there was this:

Every just man who feels he has a case against the king shall be protected by law and no harm should come to him or his kin. And should the case against the king be dismissed, no harm should come to him. And should the case go in the man’s favor, no harm should come to him or his kin.

Truly Fumanguru was either most wise or most foolish of dreamers. Or he was counting on the king’s better nature. Some writs were just a breath away from treason. The one most bold and most foolish came at the end:

That the house of kings return to the ways that had been decreed by the gods, and not this course which has corrupted the ways of kings for six generations. This is what we demand: that the king follow the natural order set by gods of sky and gods below the earth. Return to the purity of the line as set in the words of long-dead griots and forgotten tongues. That until the kings of the North return to the clean path, they go against the will of all that is right and good, and nothing shall stop this house from falling or be conquered by another.

He called the royal house corrupted. And for a return to the real line of kings, wrong for six generations, or the gods would make sure the house of Akum fell. Fumanguru had written his own death note, words that guaranteed execution before it even reached the king, but had hidden it in secret. For who to find it?

So I read most of his journals and looked through all, including that one he was writing very close to his death. This I know: The last entry was the day before he was murdered, and yet here was the book in this hall of books. But only he could have added to his own stack; no one else would have been allowed. Who am I to put reasoning into unreasonable? There is no farewell here, no final instruction, not even any of that sauce of bitterness when one knows death is coming but does not like his fate.

But something here did not go right. He made no mention of the boy. Nothing at all. Something must have come from this boy—a fragrance of something bigger, deeper, more important, as sure as what I smelled on the doll, but bigger so—if this boy was the reason he and his family were hunted and killed by Omoluzu. But there was nothing here of the boy’s worth, nothing here of the boy’s kin, nothing here even of the boy’s use. Fumanguru was keeping him a secret even from his own records. In his way, keeping him secret even from himself. And among smells was something sour coming from the pages. Something spilled and dried, but from an animal, not from the ground or of the palm or the vine. Milk. Vanished from sight now, but still there. I remembered a woman suckling a baby who sent me in a most curious way a message to save her from her husband and captor. I reached for the candle.

“Bigger fires have started from smaller flames,” he said.

I jumped and reached for my axes, but his sword was already at my neck. I had smelled myrrh but thought it was an old bottle the library master had behind him.

The prefect.

“Did you follow me or have me followed?” I asked.

“Do you mean will you need to kill one man or two?”

“I never—”

“You still wear that curtain? Even after two days?”

“By the gods, if one more man says I wear a curtain …”

“That is a pattern on the drapes of rich men. Are you not river folk? Why not just wear ochre and butter?”

“Because you Kongori think strange about dress and undress.”

“I am not Kongori.”

“Your sword is at my neck. Answer my question.”

“I followed you myself. But grew tired when I saw the giant would cry to you the entire night. His stories were amusing, but his crying was insufferable. That is not how we mourn in the East.”

“You’re not in the East.”

“And you are not among the Ku. Now why were you about to burn that note?”

“Take your blade away from my neck.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because there is a blade between my big toes. Kill me and I might just fall and die before you. Or I could kick and you become a eunuch.”

“Put that down.”

“You think I have come all this way to burn this?” I said.

“I don’t think anything.”

“Not a new thing for a prefect.”

He pushed the blade harder against my neck.

“The paper. Down.”

I put the paper down and looked up at him. “Look at me,” I said. “I shall hold this paper over this flame, for I feel it will reveal something to me. I do not know you, nor do I know how stupid you are, but I cannot make what I say any simpler.”

He withdrew the sword.

“How do I know this?” he said.

“You will have to trust me.”

“Trust you? I don’t even like you.”

We stared at each other for a long time. I grabbed a sheet, the one most sour.

“You and your curtain for a dress,” he said.

“Will you not stop until I am off with my clothes?”

I waited for a sharp reply, but it never came. I would have gone there, trying to figure out why the sharp reply never came, or try to catch him before he hid it from his face, but I did not.

“What are you—”

“Please, be quiet. Or at least watch for the keeper.”

He stopped talking and shook his head. Fumanguru had written these writs in red ink, bright in colour but light in tone. I pulled the candle closer to me, then held the sheet right over the flame.

“’Tis Mossi.”

“What?”

“My name. The name you have forgotten. It is Mossi.”

I lowered the flame so that I could see the flicker through the paper and feel the warmth on my finger. Figures took shape. Glyphs, letters moving left to right or right to left, I did not know. Glyphs written in milk so they would be hidden until now. My nose led me to four more pages smelling of milk. I ran them over the fire until glyphs appeared, line after line, row after row. I smiled and looked up at the prefect.

“What are those?” he asked.

“You said you are from the East?”

“No, my skin went pale when all the colour washed off.”

I stared at him blankly until he said something else.

“North, then east,” he said.

I handed the first paper to him.

“These are coastal glyphs. Cruel letters, the people call them. Can you read them?”

“No,” I said.

“I can read some of it.”

“What … do … they …”

“I’m no master of ancient marks. You think Fumanguru made these?”

“Yes, and—”

“For what purpose?” he asked.

“So that even if the wrong man came this close to the water, he would never be able to drink.”

“That I understood you makes me very sad.”

“Glyphs are supposed to be the language of the gods.”

“If the gods are too old and stupid to know the words and numbers of modern men.”

“You sound like you stopped believing in the gods.”

“I am just amused by all of yours.”

It bothered me to look at him and see him looking at me.

“My belief is nothing. He believed that the gods were speaking to him. What draws you to Fumanguru?” Mossi said.

And I thought, for a blink, What should I construct now, and how much will I have to build on it? The thought alone made me tired. I told myself that I was just tired of believing there was a secret to protect from some unknown enemy, when the truth was I was tired of not having someone to tell it to. Here is truth: At this point I would have told anyone. Truth is truth, and I do not own it. It should make no difference to me who hears it, since him hearing the truth does not change it. I wished the Leopard was here.

“I could ask you the same thing. His family died from sickness,” I said.

“No sickness cuts a woman in two. The prefect of prefects declared this matter closed, and recommended that to the chiefs, who recommended that to the King.”

“Yet here you are, in front of me, because you didn’t swallow that story.”

He leaned his sword against a stack of books and sat on the floor. His tunic slipped off his knees and he wore no underclothes. I am Ku and it is nothing new to see the man in men, I said to myself three times. Without looking at me, he pulled the tail of his garment up between his legs. He hunched over the papers and read.

“Look,” he said, and I leaned over.

“Either his mind went slightly mad, or it is his intent to confuse you. Look at this, the vulture, the chick, and the foot all pointed west. This is northern writing. Some make one sound, like the vulture’s sound, which is mmmm. Some make a whole word or carry an idea. But look at this down here, the fourth line. Do you see how it differs? This is the coast. Go to the coast of the South Kingdom, or even that place, I forget its name. That island to the east, what is the name …?”

“Lish.”

“You can still find this writing in Lish. Each one is a sound, all sounds make—”

“I know what a word is, prefect. What is he saying?”

“Patience, Tracker. ‘God … gods of sky. They no longer speak to spirits of the ground. The voice of kings is becoming the new voice of the gods. Break the silence of the gods. Mark the god butcher, for he marks the killer of kings.’ Is this sounding wise to you? For it is foolishness to me. ‘The god butcher in black wings.’”

“Black wings?”

“This is what he says. None of this moves like a wave. I think he meant it so. A king is king by a queen, not a king. But the boy—”

“Wait. Stay, do not move,” I said.

He looked up and nodded. His thighs, lighter in skin than the rest of him, sprouted hairs too straight. I went right to the library master’s table, but he was still gone. I guessed he kept behind him the logbooks and records of kings and royal subjects. I climbed two steps up a ladder and looked around until I saw the mark of the rhinoceros head in gold. I flipped from the back page and dust rushed into my nose, making me cough. A few pages in was the house of Kwash Liongo, almost the same as what Fumanguru had scratched out on paper. On the page before was a Liongo, his brothers and sisters, and the King before him, Kwash Moki, who became King at twenty and ruled until he was forty and five.

“What news on black wings?”

I knew I jumped. I knew he saw me.

“Nothing,” I said.

I grabbed the batch of papers and placed them on the table. The candles threw colour on them like weak sunlight.

“This is the house of Akum,” I said. “Rulers for over five hundred years, right up to Kwash Dara. His father is Netu, here. Above him, here, is Aduware the Cheetah King, who was third in line, when the crown prince died, and his brother banished. Then above him is Liongo the great, who ruled nearly seventy years. Who doesn’t know the great King Liongo? Then over here on this leaf, Liongo again and above him, Moki, his father, the boy King.”

“Turn the page.”

“I did. There’s nothing before.”

“You didn’t—”

“Look,” I said, pointing at the blank page. “Nothing is there.”

“But Moki is not the first Akum King, that would make the line about two hundred and fifty years old.”

“Two hundred and seventy.”

“Keep flipping,” Mossi said.

“Family map. Fasisi Kwash Dara. Akum. His seat of rule, his praise name, his king name, and his family.”

Three pages up, another family map someone drew in a darker blue. At the top of the page was Akum. At the bottom was Kwash Kagar, Moki’s father. But above him something curious, and above that even more curious.

“Is this a new line? An old one, I mean,” the prefect said.

“House of Akum up to Moki’s father. What do you notice?”

“Above Kagar is a line pointing to Tiefulu? That’s a woman’s name. His mother.”

“Beside hers.”

“Kwash Kong.”

“Now look above Kong.”

“Another woman, another sister. Tracker, no king is the son of a king.”

“Until Moki.”

“There are many kingdoms that follow the wife’s line, or the sister.”

“Not the North Kingdom. From Moki down, every king is the king’s oldest son, not his sister’s son. Grab these.”

I went back to the glyphs. He followed me over, looking at the maps, not at me.

“What did you say about kings and gods?” I said.

“I said nothing about kings and—”

“You tiresome in all your ways?”

He dropped the papers at my feet and grabbed the writs.

“A king is king by a queen, not a king,” he said.

“Give me that. Look at this writ.”

He bent over me. This was not the time to think of myrrh. He read, “‘That the house of kings return to the ways that had been decreed by the gods, and not this course which has corrupted the ways of kings for six generations. This is what we demand: that the king follow the natural order set by gods of sky and gods below the earth. Return to the purity of the line as set in the words of long-dead griots and forgotten tongues.’ This is what he wrote.”

“So the northern line of kings changed from king’s sister’s son to king’s son, six generations ago. These are facts for any that would look. No reason to murder an elder. And these writs, sure they call for a return to the old order, which some might say is mad, some might say is treason, but most will never go so far back in the line of kings to check,” I said.

“And what do you think will happen if they do?”

“Outrage maybe.”

He laughed. Such irritation.

“The times are the times, and people are people. Something so long ago? People will shrug it off like a smelly blanket,” he said.

“Something here is missing or—”

“What do you not tell me?” he said. His eyes narrowed in a wicked frown.

“You have seen what I see. I have told you what I know,” I said.

“What do you think?”

“I have no duty to tell you what I think.”

“Tell me anyway.”

He stooped down next to me and the papers. Those eyes of his. Popping bright in the near-dark.

“I think this is connected to that child. The one from Fumanguru’s house.”

“The one you think the murderers took with them?”

“They were not the ones who took the child. Before you ask how I know, just know I know. Someone I know claims she saved the child that night. Whoever sent assassins to Fumanguru must know somebody saved the child.”

“They wish to wash the world clean of him and mask their tracks.”

“That is what I thought. But too much has happened. There is no reason to kill Fumanguru, none other than they were after the child in the first place. It would be why so many people are still interested in such an old murder. I asked one who would know two days ago if he picked up any word on any man like Fumanguru. He told me two elders fucking a deaf girl said they had to find the writs, or it would be the death of someone. Maybe them. One was Belekun the Big. You should know I killed him,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Not before he tried to kill me. In Malakal. Had his men try to kill me as well.”

“A more stupid man has not been born, clearly. Continue, Tracker.”

“Anyway, the other was a whore named Ekoiye. He said let us talk in another place, so we went by tunnel to a roof. First he told me that many still go to the Fumanguru house. Including some of you.”

“Of course.”

“And others in your uniform.”

“I only went there twice. Alone.”

“There were others.”

“Not without my order.”

“He said—”

“You trust the good word of a prostitute over a man of justice?”

“You’re a man of order, not justice,” I said.

“Continue with your story.”

“No surprise you confuse the two.”

“Continue, I say.”

“He told me all who still go by the Fumanguru house—looking for what, he didn’t know. Then he tried to cast a spell on me with kohl dust dried in viper venom,” I said.

“And you live? One breath could have killed a horse. Or made you a zombi.”

“I know. I threw him off the roof.”

“The gods, Tracker. Is he dead too?”

“No. But you are right. He tried to make me a zombi, to drag me back to his room. Then he would release a pigeon to let someone know he has me. I released the pigeon myself. Trust me, prefect, it was not long before a man came to the room, with weapons, but I think he came to take me, not kill me.”

“Take you where? To who?”

“I killed him before I could find out. He was dressed as a prefect.”

“The trail of bodies you are leaving behind, Tracker. Soon the whole city will stink because of you.”

“I said he was dressed as a—”

“I heard what you said.”

“He didn’t leave a body. I will tell you more of that later. But this. When he died I saw something like black wings leave him.”

“Of course. What is a story without beautiful black wings? What has any of this to do with the boy?”

“I seek the boy. That is why I am here. A slaver hired me and some others, strangers to your city, to search for the boy. Together at first, but most have gone their own way. But others seek the boy. No, not hired by the slaver. I cannot tell if they follow us or are one step ahead of us. They have tried to kill us before.”

“Well you do not slack when it comes to killing, Tracker.”

“We were sent here for a reason. To see from where he was taken, yes, but more to see where they went.”

“Oh. There is still much you are not telling me. Like who is this they? Were there people who came to kill him, and people who came to save him? And if the people who came to save him then took him, what is that to you? Would he not be safer with them than with you?”

“The people who saved him lost him.”

“Of course. Maybe the same people sold him to witches.”

“No, but they trusted the wrong people. But there is this. I think I know who he is, this b—”

“This still follows no sense. I have a different idea.”

“You do.”

“Yes, I do.”

“The world awaits.”

“Your trusted Fumanguru was a part of the illicit arts, or trades. Makes no difference; both result in innocents sold, raped, or killed. He dug a hole for himself so deep and wide that he fell into it. It was a clean kill, a complete kill, all but the boy. As long as the boy is alive, all accounts are not settled. Those are the people after your boy.”

“A good argument. Except most do not know of the boy. Not even you until I told you.”

“What, then?”

“He was protecting the boy. Hiding him. He would have been but a baby back then. You should know that I know who this boy is. I have no proof, but when I do, he will be who I think he is. Until I do, what is this?”

I handed him the paper strip I took from the pigeon. He brought it right to his nose, then held it away from his face. “This is in the same style as the glyphs on the writ. It says, News of the boy, come now.”

“The prefect who tried to kill me had these things branded on his chest.”

“This?”

“Clearly not this. But characters in this style.”

“Do you—”

“No, I don’t remember. But Fumanguru uses their tongue.”

“Such a puzzle, Tracker. The more you tell me, the less I know.”

“Was that all? All of what Fumanguru wrote?”

He looked through the papers again. Two more smelled of soured milk. He traced each mark with his hand as I read them.

“It is instructions,” he said. “‘Take him to Mitu, to the guided hand of the one-eyed one, walk through Mweru and let it eat your trail.’ This is what it says.”

“No man comes back from the Mweru.”

“Is that true? Or what old wives say? This last of this text is unreadable to me.”

“Why would he send him there? He will be a man too,” I said.

“Who will be a man?”

“I was talking to myself.”

“No mothers taught you this was rude? You said you knew who he is, this child. Who is he?”

I looked at him.

“Then tell me who gives him chase and why.”

“That would be to tell you who he is.”

“Tracker, I cannot help you this way.”

“Who asked for your help?”

“Of course, the gods must smile at how far you have come on your own.”

“Listen. There have been three who hired me to find this child. A slaver, a river spirit, and a witch. Between them, they have told me five stories so far of who this child is.”

“Five lies to find him or save him?”

“Both. Neither.”

“They wish that you save him, but do not wish that you know who you save. Are you one to betray him?”

“I wondered how a prefect felt about men for hire.”

“No, you wondered how I feel about you.”

He started walking around the stacks, behind a wall of them. I could hear the slight drag of one foot, a limp that he masked well.

“But this is the hall of records, is it not?” he said.

“’Tis your city.”

“Who records the lives of kings?”

I turned and pointed behind the keeper’s desk. He would not return tonight, that was sure. The book was also leaves, sewn rough and uneven, and bound in a leather sleeve, dustier than the others. An account of Kwash Dara, up until that day. His name, in a line with his two brothers, and one sister. One brother married the daughter of the Queen of Dolingo, to build an alliance. One married the widow of a chieftain with little land, but great wealth in the grasslands. The oldest sister is listed first among the women, and here it said only that she gave over her life to serving Wapa, the goddess of earth, fertility, and women, after her husband, a prince from Juba, died at his own hand, taking also their children. The story says nothing of where she went, nothing of a mountain fortress.

“What of older kings? Kings of the ages before this one?” said Mossi.

“The griots. Even with the written word, the true mark of a king would have been men committing their story to memory, to recite it as in poetry, or when the people gather to hear praise of famous men. Here is my guess. Written accounts of kings began only with Kwash Netu’s age. The rest belong only in the voices of the griots. And there is the problem. The men who sing about the deeds of all kings are in the King’s employ.”

“Oh.”

“There are others. Griots whose record of the kings the King does not know. Men who wrote secret verses, men with songs that would get them executed, and the songs forbidden.”

“Who would they sing them to?”

“To themselves. Some men think truth only needs to be in service to truth.”

“Alas, dead men then.”

“Most. But there are two, maybe three whose songs go back a thousand years.”

“Do they claim to go back a thousand years as well?”

“Why do you limp?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, boy of such wayward fate. You know, Tracker, you have ventured very far in this, and not once have you even given things a whisper.”

“What things?”

“You speaking intrigue on who is still your King. Or that as prefect I am his servant.”

Much time had slipped since I looked at his sword. Engage the enemy first, that is how he would have it. But he turned his back to me and stood looking at a stack.

“Fumanguru produces this whatever you call it against the King, and because he was murdered, you figure him blameless. Cast your eyes on the world as we prefects do. You are about to ask what I mean. I mean thus. More times than not, whenever some deed most foul comes to a man’s door, it’s because he invited him in.”

“So every death comes to the victim who deserves it. You truly are a prefect.”

“What a wife you will make someone one day.”

I did not even bother to glare.

“So do as your superiors do and call the matter shut. Hear this. Since this is an open space where any may enter, and since I am not connected to any crime, be a good member of the Kongori chieftain army and be gone.”

“Now hold—”

“Is our business not done, prefect? There is a child you do not believe lives, a writ you think means nothing, about a king whom you serve and believe blameless, and not connected to a series of events that did not happen, or even if they did happen, meant nothing. All surrounding a man whose entire family was murdered because of some snake he took to his home thinking it a pet, only to have it bite him. Is that about all of it, prefect? It surprises me you’re still here. Make distance between us. Go ahead.”

“I will not be dismissed by you.”

“Oh fuck the gods! Then stay. I will leave.”

“You forget who has authority in this room,” he said, drawing his sword.

“You have authority over your own kind. Where are they, your black-and-blue zombi?”

He held his sword out straight and came at me. The zup sound shot between us and we jumped back as the spear lodged itself in the floor. Black with blue marks.

“One of yours,” I said.

“Shut your mouth!”

A quick light shone from above us, and only when the arrow lodged into a tower of books did we see the light was flame. A shadow in the window had shot a flaming arrow down at us. The fire rose from the floor and flicked a tail. It twisted left, then right, then left like a lizard seeing too many things to eat. The flame jumped on a stack, and fire burst from each book, one then another, then another, up and up. Three more arrows came through the windows. The fire halted me, tricked me into stopping to wonder how come an entire wall was raging in flames. A hand grabbed mine and pulled me out of the spell.

“Tracker! This way.”

Smoke burned my eyes and made me cough. I couldn’t remember if the Sangoma protected me from fire. Mossi pulled me along, cursing that I wasn’t moving faster. We dashed through an arch of flames right before they collapsed, and burning paper hit my heel. He jumped over a stack of books, went through a wall of smoke, and vanished. I looked back, almost slowed down to think of the fire’s speed, and jumped through the smoke. And landed almost on top of him.

“Stay to the ground. Less smoke. And they will see less of us when we come out.”

“They?”

“You think this is one man?”

This section of the hall had only smoke, but the fire was running out of food and hungrier than ever. It jumped from stack to stack, and ate through papyrus and leather. A tower fell and shot flames through the smoke wall at us. We scrambled. I could not remember where to find the door. He grabbed my robe and pulled me again. We ran right, between two walls of books, then left, then right, and then what felt like north but I did not know. Mossi’s hand still gripped my robe. The heat was close enough that the hair on my skin burned. We reached the door. Mossi swung it open and jumped back before four arrows hit the floor.

“How far can you throw those?”

I grabbed the ax. “Far enough.”

“Good. Judging from how these arrows lean, they are on the roof to the right.”

He ran back into the smoke and came out with two books burning. He nodded to window, then pointed at the door. Don’t give them a chance to grab new arrows. He threw the books out the window and four arrows cut through the wind, two hitting the window. I ran, dropped, and rolled out the door, then jumped up, ax in hand, and threw it. As the ax spun towards the archers it curved, slicing one man’s throat and lodging in the other’s temple. I jumped into the dark and out of the path of two arrows. More arrows kept coming, some with flame, some with poison, like rainfall until it stopped.

The hall burned in every wall, every chamber, and a crowd started to gather in the street. No more archers waited on the roof. I slipped away from the crowd and ran around to the back of the building. Up on the roof Mossi wiped his sword on the skirt of a dead man and sheathed it. How he passed me I don’t know. Also this: On the roof lay four bodies, not two.

“I know what you will say. Don’t sa—”

“These men are prefects.”

He walked to the ledge and watched the blaze. “Two of them are dead,” he said.

“Are they not all dead?”

“Yes, but two were dead before we killed them. The fat one is Biza, the tall one Thwoko. Both have been missing for over ten and three moons, but nobody knew what happened to them. They—”

I heard them in the dark and knew what was happening. The dead men’s mouths tearing open. The rumbling and rattling from toes to head as if death came in fits. Even in the dark the ripples rose from their thighs, to belly, to chest and then flew out the mouth in a cloud inky as night, a cloud we could barely see, which swirled and then vanished in the air. Too many shadows to see, but I knew on the spin of cloud and dust formed wings, for we both heard the flutter. We both stood there, looking at each other, neither wanting to say anything first, anything that spoke of what we just saw.

“They will crumble to dust if you touch them,” I said.

“Then best not to touch them,” a man said, and I jumped. Mossi smiled.

“Mazambezi, was it the flames that drew you or you missed the smell of me?”

“Indeed, one lives with shit, one gets used to the perfume of it.”

Two more prefects climbed up on the roof, neither saying anything to Mossi, but both looking over at the fire and covering their mouths at the smoke that started drifting our way.

“What do we do when we watch our history burn?” Mazambezi said.

“Your words speak of such loss, Mazambezi. We shall fill a new hall,” Mossi said.

“How did it start, do you know?”

“Don’t you know? Your men—”

“Some men dressed as chieftain army,” Mossi said, interrupting me. “I saw them myself, fire arrows into the great hall. Maybe they are usurpers. Hurting us where it would hurt the most.”

“This too will need a record. And where shall we store them?” Mazambezi laughed.

“You must take a look at these men, Mazambezi, their whole bodies are racked by dark craft,” Mossi said, and looked at the bodies again. It flashed, catching the light of the fire, and I yelled.

“Mossi!”

He ducked just as Mazambezi’s sword sliced through the air right above his head. The duck made him stumble. One of the men drew a small bow and aimed at me. I dropped beside the body that had caught my ax in the skull. I tore it out as an arrow flew in and replaced it. I jumped up and flung my ax, which spun and blurred and struck him in the middle of his chest. Mazambezi and a prefect both fought Mossi with swords. Mazambezi charged at him, sword out straight like a spear. Mossi dodged and kicked him in the chest with his knees. Mazambezi elbowed him in the side; Mossi fell and spun out of the other prefect’s strike, which sparked lights on the ground. The prefect raised his sword again but Mossi swung from the ground and chopped off his foot. The prefect fell, screaming. Mossi jumped up and drove his sword down into the prefect’s chest. He paused, panting, and Mazambezi sliced right across his back. I jumped between them and swung my ax. His blade met my blade and the force knocked him clear across the floor. He rose, shocked, confused, Mossi jumped in between us.

“Enough with this madness, Mazambezi, you called yourself incorruptible.”

“You call yourself handsome, and yet I can’t see what the women see in you.”

Mossi held his sword up, as did Mazambezi, and circled as if to clash again. I jumped in between them.

“Tracker! He will—”

Mazambezi swung his sword a hair’s length from my face, and I caught the blade. It shocked the prefect. He pulled his sword to cut my fingers but drew no blood. Mazambezi stood there, stunned. Two swords went straight through his back and came out through his belly. Mossi yanked his swords back, and the prefect fell.

“I would ask how, but do I—”

“A Sangoma. An enchantment. He would have killed me with a wooden sword,” I said.

Mossi nodded, not accepting the answer, but not wanting to push for another one.

“More of them will come,” I said.

“Mazambezi was not like the others. He spoke.”

“He only possesses some. He pays the others.”

Mossi turned back to watch the crowd, all lit up by firelight. He cursed and ran past me. I followed him down the rear staircase, jumping three steps like he did. He dashed into the crowd. I ran after him but the crowd surged forward and pulled back like waves. Someone cried that Kongor is lost, for how can we have a future without our past? The crowd confused me, made me deaf and blind until I remembered that I could now smell the library master. Mossi slapped him in the dark, slapped him until I grabbed his hand. The bookkeeper cowered on the ground.

“Mossi.”

“This whoreson will not talk.”

“Mossi.”

“They murder my books, they murder my books,” the library master said.

“Let me speak for you. A man came to you and said, Send word if any man comes by asking for records of Fumanguru. I come in, I say where are the records for Fumanguru, and you sent word by pigeon.”

He nodded yes.

“Who?” Mossi shouted.

“One of yours,” I said to him.

“Stick your falsehoods up your asshole, Tracker.”

“The only thing lying to you are your own eyes.”

“Why they murder my books? Why they murder my books?” the library master wailed.

“We will see what he knows and does not know.”

I went right up to Mossi.

“Listen to me. He is no different from Ekoiye. Told only what he could be trusted to know, which is nothing. Told by just a messenger, not the man sending the message. Maybe chieftain army, maybe not. Somebody is both one step ahead of us, waiting for us to come, and one step behind us, waiting for us to move so that he can follow. Somewhere in the course of the last hour we were being watched, and that person heard enough.”

“Tracker.”

“Listen to me.”

“Tracker.”

“What?”

“The keeper.”

I cursed. The keeper was gone.

“That old man could not have gone far,” Mossi said, just as some women screamed and a man shouted, No, old man, no.

“He didn’t plan to,” I said.

Right then the library roof caved in and killed some of the flames, but the whole square was hot and bright.

“Distance between us and this place, we need now,” I said.

Mossi nodded. We turned down an empty alley that had puddles even though the rains were long gone, and where wild dogs tore through whatever people threw out. A dog looking almost like a hyena made me shudder. Sogolon was nowhere eyes could see and neither was the girl. All I knew of Sogolon’s smell was lemongrass and fish, which could have been any of hundreds of women. I’ve never smelled her skin on the girl’s and the Ogo did not have much of a smell. I never thought to make mark of the lord of the house, or the buffalo.

“We should head east,” I said.

“This is south.”

“You lead, then.”

He turned right at the nearest alley, also deserted.

“We Kongori must lack entertainment if a little fire can pull us away.”

“There was nothing little about that fire,” I said.

He turned to me. “And they will think it the work of a foreigner first.”

“Except it was members of your own force.”

He tapped my chest. “You need to cut that thought loose.”

“And you need to look at what is loose all around you.”

“Those were not my men.”

“Those men wore your uniform.”

“But they were not my men.”

“You recognized two.”

“Did you not hear me?”

“Oh, I hear you.”

“Don’t give me that look.”

“You can’t see my look.”

“I know you have it.”

“What look, third prefect of the Kongori chieftain army?”

“That one. The one saying he’s a fool, or he’s slow, or he denies what he sees.”

“Look, we can leave or we can have words, but we cannot do both.”

“Since your ways of seeing are so superior to mine, look behind you and say if he is friend or foe.”

He walked slow as if with his own business. We stopped. He stopped, perhaps two hundred paces behind us, not in the alley but where it crossed the lane going north. This could not be the first time I am noticing that it was dark, I thought. Mossi was beside me, breathing fast.

His hair short and red. Earplugs glimmered in both ears. The same man I saw back in the pool in the Darklands. This man Bunshi called the Aesi. In a black cape that flapped open like wings, waking up the wind and whipping up the dust. Mossi drew his sword; I did not draw my knives. The dust around him would not settle, rising and falling and swirling and shifting into lizard-like beasts as high as the walls, then swirling again into dust, then into four figures as huge as the Ogo, then falling to the ground as dust, then rising again and flapping like wings. The prefect grabbed my shoulder.

“Tracker!”

Mossi ran off and I followed. He ran to the end of the alley and dashed right. Truth, he ran faster than the Leopard. I turned back once and saw the Aesi still standing there, wind and dust unsettled around him. We had run into a street that had some people. They all walked in the same direction and slow as if coming from the fire. He would notice us running faster than everyone else. Mossi, as if he heard me, slowed. But they—women, some children, mostly men—were moving too slow, taking for granted that bed would be as they left it. We were passing them, looking back at times, but the Aesi was not following us. A woman in a white gown pulled her son along, the son looking back and trying to pull away from her. The child looked up and stared at me. I thought his mother would pull him away, but she had stopped too. She stared at me like the boy did, like the blank stare of a dead man. Mossi spun around and saw it too. Every man, woman, and child in the street was looking at us. But they stood still as if made of wood. No limb moved, not even a finger. Only their necks moved, to turn and look at us. We kept walking slow, they kept standing still, and their eyes kept following us. “Tracker,” Mossi said, but so under his breath that I barely heard it. Their eyes kept following us. An old man who was walking the other way turned so much, with his feet planted on the ground, that I thought his backbone would snap. Mossi still gripped his sword.

“He’s possessing them,” I said.

“Why is he not possessing us?”

“I don’t—”

The mother dropped her child’s hand and charged at me, screaming. I dodged out of her way and swung my foot for her to trip. Her son leapt onto my back, biting into it until Mossi pulled him off. The child hissed and the hiss woke the people. They all charged after us. We ran, I elbowed an old man in the face and knocked him over, and Mossi swatted another with the flat side of his sword.

“Don’t kill them,” I said.

“I know.”

I heard a hum. A man hit me in the back with a rock. Mossi punched him away. I kicked two down, leapt onto the shoulder of another, and jumped over them. Mossi slapped away two children and their mothers who came charging after. Two young boys jumped me and we fell flat in the mud. Mossi grabbed one by the collar, pulled him off, and threw him against the wall. God forgive me, or punish me, I said before I punched the other and knocked him out. And still more came. Some of the men had swords, spears, and daggers, but none used them. They all tried to grab us and push us down in the dirt. We had run only halfway. But from the end of the street came a rumble, and the screams of women and men flying into the air, left, right, then left, then right, then again. Many ran away. Too many ran straight to the buffalo, who charged through them, knocking them away with head and horns. Behind him, each on a horse, Sogolon and the girl. The buffalo plowed down a path for us and snorted when he saw me.

“He will possess all who pass by this alley,” Sogolon said as she rode up to us.

“I know.”

“Who are these people?” Mossi said, but jumped back when the buffalo grunted at him.

“No time to explain, we should leave. They will not stay down, Mossi.”

He looked behind him. Some of the people were waking up. Two swung around and stared at us.

“I don’t need saving from them.”

“No, but with that sword, they will soon need saving from you,” Sogolon said, and pointed him to the girl’s horse. Sogolon jumped off her own. Many of the men and women had risen, and the children were already up.

“Sogolon, we leave,” I said, mounting her horse and grabbing the reins.

The people were gathering strong, huddling, becoming one shadow in the dark. She stooped and started drawing runes in the dirt. Fuck the gods, we have no time for this, I thought. Instead I looked at Mossi, holding on to the girl, who said nothing, looking grim, looking calm, playing at both. The crowd as one ran towards us. Sogolon drew another rune in the dirt, not even looking up. The crowd was coming in close, maybe eighty paces. She stood up and looked at us, the crowd now close enough that we could see their eyes lost and faces without feeling even though they shouted. She stomped in the dirt; a gust rose and blew them down whom it did not blow away. It knocked men to the ground and women in robes up into the sky and barreled children away. The storm swept the alley all the way down to the end.

Sogolon got back on her horse and we galloped through the quarter, riding as if many were chasing us, though no one did. She gripped the reins, and I gripped her waist. I knew where we were when we came to the border road. The house was northeast, but we did not ride to the house. Instead we stayed on the border road between Nyembe and Gallunkobe/Matyube until it took us to the flooded river. Sogolon did not stop.

“Witch, you plan to drown us?”

Sogolon laughed. “This is where the river is most shallow,” she said. The buffalo ran at her side, the girl with Mossi behind her.

“We will not leave Sadogo behind.”

“He awaits us.”

I did not ask where. We crossed the river into what I knew would be Mitu. Mitu was fertile grasslands, a gathering of farmers, land lords, and owners of cattle, not a city. Sogolon led us to a dirt path lit only by moonlight. We rode under trees, the buffalo leading, the prefect quiet. He surprised me.

At the first cross paths, Sogolon said to dismount. Sadogo came out from behind a tree shorter than him and stood up.

“How is the night keeping you, Sadogo?” I asked.

He shrugged and smiled. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped. Even he knew that if he started talking it would be dawn before he stopped. He looked over at the girl and frowned when he saw Mossi dismount.

“His name is Mossi. I will tell you in the morning. Should we make a fire?”

“Who said we staying here? In a crossroad?” Sogolon said.

“I thought you witches had special love for crossroads,” I said.

“Follow me,” she said.

We stood right in the middle of the two roads. I looked over at Sadogo, helping the girl down from the horse, making sure he was between her and the prefect.

“I know I do not have to tell you of the ten and nine doors,” Sogolon said.

“That is how we came to Kongor.”

“There is one right here.”

“Old woman, that is what all old women think about where roads cross. If not a door then some other kind of night magic.”

“This look like a night for your foolishness?”

“You are afraid of him. I do not think I have ever seen fear on you. Let me gaze upon your face. Here is truth, Sogolon. I cannot tell if your mood is sour or if that is how you always look. I know who he is. The boy.”

“Aje o ma pa ita yi onyin auhe.”

“The hen doesn’t even know when she will be cooked so perhaps she should listen to the egg,” I said, and winked at Sogolon, who scowled.

“So who is he?” she asked.

“Somebody this Aesi is trying with all his might to find before you do. To kill him maybe, to steal him maybe, but he wants to find this boy as badly as you do. And it all points to the King.”

“Would you have believe it if it was me who tell you?”

“No.”

“The King want to erase the Night of the Skulls, that child—”

“That child is who he was after all along. Maybe the Aesi searches on his behalf, maybe the redhead devil acts alone. I have read Fumanguru’s writs.”

“There are no writs.”

“You’re too old for games.”

“Nobody could find them.”

“And yet I’ve read them. There are more treacherous words in the games of little girls.”

“This is not the place.”

“But it is the time. All your witchery and you never read the line on top of the lines.”

“Talk plain, fool.”

“He wrote notes on top of the words in milk. He said to take the child to the Mweru. You stare at me. So quiet you are. Walk through Mweru and let it eat your trail, that is what he said.”

“Yes. Yes. No man ever map the Mweru, and no god either. The child would be safe.”

“Might as well say he will be safe in hell.”

“There is a door here, Tracker.”

“We have already spoken on that. Open it.”

“I cannot, and never could. Only those of the Sangoma have the words that open doors. You have used it twice, do not lie.”

“The first one was just a door that witches hide. Nothing like the door to Kongor. Who is the boy?”

“You said you know. You don’t know. But you brand a guess on you. Open this door and I will tell you what you read in that library. Open the door.”

I stepped away from her and looked back at them all watching me. I clasped my hands below my mouth as if catching water to drink, and whispered the word taught to me by the Sangoma. I blew, half thinking the uncaring night would leave me standing here a fool, half thinking that right in front of me fire would form in the shape of a door. A spark formed as high above me as a tree, a spark as if striking two swords together. From the top the flame spread in two directions, curving like a circle until both ends struck the road. Then the flame died out.

“There it is, witch, the flame died and there is no door. Because we are in the crossroads, where there would be no door in the first place. I know you are from lower folk, but even up to a few days ago you must have seen what we call a door.”

“Will he shut up soon?” Mossi said to the girl. She laughed. It enraged me. More than I expected anything from him to do. Furious and having no way to show it, I just started walking. Ten and five paces in, I saw the road was not dirt but stone. The dark turned brighter, like silver from moonlight, and the air felt cold and thin. The trees taller and farther apart than Mitu, and far off and above clouds, black mountains. The others followed. I could not see Mossi’s face but knew how shocked he would be.

“Even a sangomin, when he’s not whining like an unfed bitch, can do mighty feats. Or just this,” she said as she mounted her horse and rode past me.

The buffalo passed me, then the girl. Mossi was staring at me, but other than his eyes, I could not read his face. I ran and caught up with Sogolon. She waited for me to climb on behind her. The air got colder the farther we went, so much that I tried to spread the curtain to cover more of me.

“Do not sleep tonight,” she whispered.

“But sleep is already claiming me.”

“The Aesi will jump in your dream looking for you.”

“Shall I never wake up?”

“You will wake, but he will see morning through you.”

“I do not recognize this air,” I said.

“You in Dolingo, four days’ ride from the citadel,” she said, and we continued up the hill.

“The last door took me right into the city.”

“The door is not here to obey you.”

“I know who your boy is,” I whispered.

“You think you know. Who is he then?”