“Sogolon said take him to the Mweru,” the King sister said. “He would be safe from all magic and white science in the Mweru. In that, at least, we can trust her.”
She said it in a way that I could not tell if she was telling or asking. I turned to her and saw her looking at me.
“Trust the gods,” I said.
She pointed to the trail leading down, laughed, and rode off without saying anything of gratitude. I could not smell the boy even when I looked at him. As they rode off his smell finally came to me, then it vanished again. Did not fade, but vanished. Nsaka Ne Vampi turned to me, nodded, then rode off back to Kongor.
“Leopard,” I said.
“I know.”
“What will she be riding back to, with the Ipundulu dead?”
“I don’t know, Tracker. Whatever it is, it will not be what she wants …. So, Tracker.”
“Yes?”
“The ten and nine doors. Was there a map? Did you see one?”
“We both saw one,” Mossi said.
“From here to Gangatom we would have to cross a river to Mitu, ride around the Darklands, cut through the long rain forest, and follow two sisters river west. That is at least ten and eight days and that’s not counting pirates, Ku warriors, and this King’s army and mercenaries already plundering the river folk,” I said.
“What about the doors?” Leopard said.
“We would have to sail against current to Nigiki.”
“You wish us go back past Dolingo?” Mossi said, loud enough but clearly to only me.
“Six days to Nigiki if we go by river. Take the door at Nigiki and we are in the Hills of Enchantment, three days from Gangatom.”
“That’s nine days,” the Leopard said. “But Nigiki is South Kingdom, Tracker. Catch us they will, and kill us as spies before we even get to that door.”
“Not if we move with a hush.”
“Quiet? Us four?”
“Darklands to Kongor, Kongor to Dolingo. We can only go one way,” I said.
He nodded.
“Take care,” I said to everyone. “Slip in like thieves, slip out before anyone, even the night, knows.”
“To the river,” the Leopard said.
Fumeli kicked the horse and they galloped off. I turned back to look at the Mweru. In the dark, with the sky a rich blue, all I could see were shadows. Hills rising upward, too smooth and precise. Or towers, or things left behind by giants who practiced wicked arts before man.
“Sadogo,” I said to Mossi. “I loved that giant, even if he went mad when one called him so. If I had fallen asleep, had you let me, I would have been the one to throw that old man from the roof. Do you know how much it pained him to kill? He told me of all his killings one night. Every single one, for his memory was a curse. It took us right into the break of morning. Most of the killings were no fault of his—an executioner’s job is still but a job, no worse than the man who increases taxes by the year.”
They came, the tears. I could hear myself bawl and was shocked at it. What kind of dawn was this? Mossi stood by me, silent, waiting. He put his hands on my shoulder until I stopped.
“Poor Ogo. He was the only—”
“Only?”
I tried to smile. Mossi squeezed my neck with a soft hand, and I leaned into it. He wiped my cheek and brought my forehead to his. He kissed me on the lips, and I searched for his tongue with mine.
“All your cuts are open again,” I said.
“You’ll be saying I’m ugly next.”
“These children will not want me.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Fuck the gods, Mossi.”
“But they will never need you more,” he said, mounting the horse and pulling me up behind him. The horse broke into a trot, then a full gallop. I wanted to look back, but did not. I didn’t want to look ahead either, so I rested my head on Mossi’s back. Behind us, light shone ahead as if it came from the Mweru, but it was just the break of daylight.
TWENTY-TWO
And that is all and all is truth, great inquisitor. You wanted a tale, did you not? From the dawn of it to the dusk of it, and such is the tale I have given you. What you wanted was testimony, but what you really wanted was story, is it not true? Now you sound like men I have heard of, men coming from the West for they heard of slave flesh, men who ask, Is this true? When we find this, shall we seek no more? It is truth as you call it, truth in entire? What is truth when it always expands and shrinks? Truth is just another story. And now you will ask me again of Mitu. I don’t know who you hope to find there. Who are you, how dare you say what I had was not family? You, who try to make one with a ten-year-old.
Oh, you have nothing to say. You will push me no further.
Yes, it is as you say, I was in Mitu for four years and five moons. Four years from when we left the boy in the Mweru. I was there when this rumor of war turned into a real war. What happened there is something you can ask the gods. Ask them why your South has not been winning this war, but neither the North.
The child is dead. There is nothing else to know. Otherwise, ask the child.
Oh you have nothing left to ask? Is this where we part?
What is this? Who comes in this room?
No, I do not know this man. I have never seen his back or his face.
Don’t ask me if I recognize you. I do not know you.
And you, inquisitor, you give him a seat. Yes, I can see he is a griot. Do you think he brought the kora to sell it? Why would this be the time for praise song?
It is a griot with a song about me.
There are no songs about me.
Yes, I know what I said before, I was the one who said it. That was a boast—who am I that I would be in any song? Which griot makes a song before you pay them? Fine, let him sing; it is nothing to me. Nothing he sings I will know. So sing.
Thunder god mystic brother
blessed with tongue, and the gift of kora.
It is I, Ikede, son of Akede,
I was the griot that lived in the monkeybread tree.
I been walking many days and many nights, when across it I come,
the tree near a river
I climb up and hear the parrot, and the crow, and the baboon
I hear children
laughing, screaming, fighting, making gods hush
and there up top lie a man on a rug.
What kind of man is this?
not like any man in Weme Witu, Omororo, or even Mitu.
And he said,
are you looking for beauty?
I said I think I found it
And hark, the man laugh and he say
the women of Mitu find me so ugly,
when I take the children to the markets they say
Look at that ugly family, look at those wretched beasts,
but that one khita, ngoombu, haamba he have hair like a horse.
But I say, beautiful wise bountiful women
plump in bosom and wide in smile
I am not a zombi, I am pretty like kaolin clay
and they laugh so hard, they give me doro beer and play in my hair
and I tell you, in none of these things I find any offense.
And I say to him
This tree, do you live in it?
He say, There is no you, only we and we are a strange house.
Stay with us as long as you wish.
When I climb through a hole and sit in the spot
I see he coming, bringing back meat
I say, Who is the man so sour with the eye of a wolf?
Who curse him so?
But children little, children big, children who is but air
run down the tree and stampede him
and don’t care that he cursing would scare the owl.
And they jump up on him and sit on his head, and rest under his arm
And I thinking these children have big feelings for this man,
and the sour face gone.
And the Wolf Eye climb up the top and stop when he see me,
and keep climbing.
And when he reach the top, he see the other man,
and they put lips together, and open their mouths,
I know.
The one with the wolf eye, he is the one
who says, The night is getting old, why are you not sleeping?
The sun is in the sky, why are you not waking?
Food is ready
when are you going to eat it?
Did the gods curse me and make me a mother?
No he blessed me and made you my wife,
the one called Mossi say,
and the children laugh, and the Wolf Eye scowl
And scowl, and scowl, and scowl into a laugh.
I was there, I see it.
And I see it when they chase all the children out and say go,
go to the river now,
and stay ’til the sun start to shift
And when they all gone, they think I gone too
For Mossi speak the Wolf Eye own tongue
Se ge yi ye do bo, he say
Se ge yi ye do bo
Let us love each other
For they two, they grab each other and kiss lip
then kiss tongue,
then kiss neck and nipple
and lower.
And one was the woman, and one was the man,
and both was the woman, and both was the man,
and neither was neither.
And the Wolf Eye, he rest his head in Mossi lap.
Mossi, he be rubbing the Wolf Eye’s chest.
They just stay there looking at each other,
eye studying eye.
Face at rest
maybe they sharing a dream.
One day Wolf Eye call them all together.
Children, he say, come out from the river
and present yourselves
you not raised by the jackal or the hyena.
And each child present me his name,
but their names I have all forgotten.
This is what Wolf Eye say.
He say, Mossi I am Ku,
and a Ku man can only be one kind of man
and Mossi said to him, How are you not a man
what do I grab between the legs
Mossi make joke
Wolf Eye not making joke.