“Blood. My blood. Don’t ask me how it would get there but should I grab my hand”—I pulled my dagger—“and cut my wrist here, not enough that life runs out, but enough to fill my palm, and—”
He looked up at the ceiling, even before I could point in that direction.
“And yours is very high. But it is my curse. That is, if I throw my own blood up in the ceiling, it breeds black.”
“What does that mean, breed black?”
“Men from darkest darkness—at least, they look like men. The ceiling gets unruly and spawns them. They stand on the ceiling as if it is floor. You know when the roof sounds like it is cracking.”
“Roof—”
“What?”
“Nothing. I said nothing.”
Belekun choked on a berry. He gulped down lime wine and cleared his throat.
“This, this Omoluzu sounds like a tale your mother told you. Sometimes the monsters in your mind burst through your head skin at night. But they are still in your mind. Yes.”
“So you have never seen one?”
“There is no Omoluzu to be seen.”
“Strange. Strange, Belekun the Big. This whole thing is strange.”
I walked over to him; the knife, I put back in the sheath. He tried to roll himself up to a seat but fell back down harder on his elbow. He grimaced, trying to turn it into a smile.
“You looked up before I said ceiling. I never said Omoluzu, but you did.”
“Interesting talk always makes me forget my hunger. I just remembered I am hungry.” Belekun stretched his fat hand out to a cushion with a brass bell on top, and rang it three times.
“Bisimbi, you say?”
“Yes, those little devil bitches of the flowing waters. Maybe he went to the river on the wrong night for a divination and annoyed one or two, or three. They must have followed him home. And the rest, they say, is the rest.”
“Bisimbi. You are sure?”
“As sure as I am that you annoy me like a scratch on the inside of my asshole.”
“Because Bisimbi are lake spirits. They hate rivers; the flowing water confuses them, makes them drift too far when they fall asleep. And there’s no lake in Malakal or Kongor. Also this. The Omoluzu attacked his house. His youngest son—”
“Yes, that poor child. He was of age to bull-jump his way to a man.”
“Too young for a bull jump, is this not so?”
“A child of ten and five years is more than old enough.”
“The child was not long born.”
“Fumanguru has no child not long born. His last was ten and five years ago.”
“How many bodies were found?”
“Ten and one—”
“How many were family?”
“They found as many bodies as there should have been in that house.”
“How are you so certain?”
“Because I counted them.”
“Nine of the same blood?”
“Eight.”
“Of course. Eight.”
“And the servants all accounted for?”
“We wouldn’t want to still be paying for a corpse.”
He rang the bell hard. Five times.
“You seem unsettled, Belekun the Big. Here let me help you u—”
As I bent over to grab his arm, air zipped past the back of my neck twice. I dropped to the floor and looked up. The third spear shot through, quick as the first two, and pierced the wall beside the other two. Belekun tried to scramble away, his feet slipping, and I grabbed his right foot. He kicked me in the face and crawled across the floor. I jumped up to a squat as the first guard ran at me from an inner room. Hair in three plaits and red as his skirt, he charged at me with a dagger. I pulled my hatchet before he got twenty paces and flung it straight between his eyes. Two throwing daggers passed over him, and I ducked to the ground again as another guard charged me. Belekun was trying to crawl to his door, but violence made even his fingers stiff, and he could barely move, like a tired fish too long out of water. My eyes on Belekun, I let the other guard get close to me, and as he swung a large ax I rolled to miss, before it hit the ground and sparked little lightnings. He swung it over his head and brought it down again, almost chopping my foot. Like a devil, this man. I pushed myself up on my elbows and jumped back right as he swung the ax to my face. He swung it right above me again, but I pulled my second hatchet, ducked under his swing, and chopped into his left shin. He screamed and the ax fell. He went down hard. I grabbed his ax and swung a chop to his temple. My blink blocked blood before it splashed my eye.
Belekun the Big pulled himself up. Somehow he found a sword. Just holding it made him tremble.
“I give you this, Belekun, for I give charity to all elders. You may deliver the first blow. First parry. Stab me. Chop if that is what the gods tell you,” I said. He blubbered something. I smelled piss.
Belekun trembled so hard his necklaces and bracelets all rattled.
“Raise your sword,” I said. Sweat ran from his forehead to his chins. He raised the sword and pointed it at me. It dipped from his hands and I stopped it with my foot, lifted it up until it pointed at me.
“I give you one more charity, Belekun the Big. I’ll fall on it for you.”
I threw myself on the sword. Belekun screamed. Then he looked at me, still in the air, his sword below me, both of us suspended as if we were the backsides of magnets.
“A sword cannot kill you?” he said.
“A sword cannot touch me,” I said. The sword flew out of his hand and I fell. Belekun rolled himself up and ran for the door, screaming, “Aesi, lord of hosts! Aesi, lord of hosts!”
I yanked a spear from the wall, took three steps, and threw it. The iron tip burst through his neck, shot through his mouth, and lodged in the door.
Six days after Leopard and I met at Kulikulo Inn, we were in the Uwomowomowomowo valley. No Bunshi, but the slaver was there trying to show the boy Fumeli how to ride a horse. He gripped the reins too tight, told the horse clashing messages, so of course she jumped up on two legs and threw him off. Three other horses stood off near a tree, grazing, all dressed in the floral cotton quilt saddles of the northern horse lords. Two horses, harnessed to a chariot, red with gold trim, stood waiting off in the distance, their tails whisking away flies. I had not seen a chariot since I tracked a pack of stolen horses far north of the sand sea. The horse threw Fumeli off again. I laughed out loud, hoping he heard. The Leopard saw me and changed, trotting off as I waved to him. I thought I would feel nothing when I saw Nyka coming out of the bush, Nsaka Ne Vampi beside him, both in long blue djellaba, dark as black skin in the night. His hair plaited tight into one braid, and curved out and up at the back like a horn. She covering her hair in a wrap. His bottom lip red and swollen, and a soiled white linen strip above his brow. The slaver kept one caravan, the prettiest one left behind, and from it came Sogolon the witch. She looked angry that sunlight was in her eyes, but that might have been how her face always looked.
“Wolf Eye, you look younger in the daylight,” Nyka said. He smiled and winced as he touched his bottom lip.
I said nothing. Nsaka Ne Vampi looked at me. I thought she would nod but she just looked.
“Where is the Ogo?” I said to the slaver.
“By the river.”
“Oh. Ogo are not known as bathers.”
“Who said he bathes?”
The slaver ran to Fumeli, who was trying to jump back on the horse.
“Young fool, stop. One horse kick, you go down and down you shall remain. I tell you true,” he said.
The slaver waved us over. The man who fed him dates came out of the caravan with a sack slung over his shoulder and a silver tray carrying several leather pouches. The slaver grabbed them one by one and threw them to us. I felt the texture of silver coins, heard them clink.
“This not your reward. This is what my bookkeepers have portioned out for your expenses, each according to your ability, which means you all received the same. Nothing is cheap in Kongor, especially information.”
His date feeder opened a sack, pulled out scrolls, and handed them to us. Nyka refused and so did Nsaka Ne Vampi. I wondered if she refused because he did. She talked much those nights ago, but said nothing now. Fumeli took one for the Leopard, who was still a Leopard, though he was listening.
“That is a map of the city drawn to the best recollection, since I have not been there in years. Beware of Kongor. Roads seem straight, and lanes promise to take you where they say they go, but they twist and snake you, and bend into places you will not want to go, places of no return. Listen to me good, I tell you true. There are two ways to get to Kongor. Tracker, you know of what I speak. Some of you will not. When you head west and get to the White Lake, you can go around it, which will add two days to your journey, or cross, which will take a day, for the lake is narrow. That is your choice, not mine. Then you can choose to ride around the Darklands, which will add three days to your journey, or ride through, but it is the Darklands,” the slaver said.
“What is the Darklands?” the boy Fumeli said.