Sogolon fell back. Her head jerked left like somebody slapped her, then right. I heard the slap. Everyone heard the slap. Sogolon fell and shook, then stopped, then shook, then shook again, then grabbed her belly and snarled something in a language that I have heard in the Darklands. The girl holding her robe fell with her. She looked at me, her eyes wide open, about to scream. Sogolon stood up but air slapped her down again. I drew my hatchets, the Ogo squeezed his knuckles, the Leopard changed, and Fumeli drew his bow. The Leopard’s bow. The Sangoma’s enchantment was still on me, and I could feel it the way one feels the sharp cold on the air of a coming storm. Sogolon staggered away, almost falling twice. Bunshi went after her.
“Madness has taken her,” the Leopard said.
“Cannot bind these and cover those,” Sogolon said in a whisper, but we heard her.
“She is old. Madness take her and gone away,” said Fumeli.
“If she is a madwoman, then you are dim-witted and young,” I said.
Bunshi tried to grab her but she pushed her away. Sogolon fell to her knees. She grabbed a stick and started drawing runes in the sand. In between what looked like someone punching her and slapping her she scratched them in the dirt. The Ogo had enough. He pulled on his iron gloves and stomped to her, but Bunshi stopped him, saying his fists cannot help us here. Sogolon marked, and scratched, and dug, and brushed dirt with her fingers, making runes in the dirt and falling back and cursing until she made a circle around her. She stood up and dropped the stick. Something moved through the air and dashed at her. We couldn’t see it, only hear the wind. Also this, the sound of something hitting, like sacks thrown against a wall, one, then three, then ten, then a rain of hits. Hitting against a wall of nothing all around Sogolon. Then nothing.
“Darklands,” Sogolon said. “Is the Darklands. All of them feeling stronger here. Taking liberties like they get passage from the underworld.”
“Who?” I asked.
Sogolon was about to speak, but Bunshi raised her hand.
“Dead spirits who never liked death. Spirits who think Sogolon can help them. They surround her with requests, and become furious when she says no. The dead should stay dead.”
“And they were all lying in wait at the mouth of the Darklands?” I asked.
“Many things lie in wait here,” Sogolon said. Not many people hold her stare, but I was not many people.
“You are lying,” I said.
“They are dead, that’s no lie.”
“I’ve been around those desperate for help, living and dead. They may grab you, hold you, and force you to look, may even pull you down to where they died, but none slap you around like a husband.”
“They are dead and that’s no lie.”
“But the witch is responsible and that’s no lie either.”
“Zogbanu is hunting you. There are more.”
“But these spirits on this shore are hunting her.”
“Think you know me. You know nothing,” Sogolon said.
“I know the next time you forget to write runes on sky or in dirt they will knock you off your horse or push you off a cliff. I know you do it every night. I wonder how you sleep. Tana kasa tano dabo.”
Both Bunshi and Sogolon stared at me. I looked at the others and said, “If it is ground, it is magic.”
“Enough. Nowhere is where this is taking us. You need to get to Mitu, then Kongor,” Bunshi said.
Sogolon grabbed her horse’s bridle, mounted, then pulled the girl up. “We go around the forest,” she said.
“That will take three days, four if the wind is against you,” the Leopard said.
“Still, we gone.”
“No one is stopping you,” Fumeli said.
I wanted nothing in the world as much as I wanted to slap this boy. But I did not want to go into the Darklands either.
“She is right,” I said. “There are things in the Darklands that will find us, even if we are not looking for them. They will be looking for—”
“It is less than a day through this silly bush,” the Leopard said.
“It is never less anything in there. You have never been.”
“There you go again, Tracker, thinking whatever has beaten you shall beat me,” the Leopard said.
“We go around,” I said, and turned for my horse. The Leopard mumbled something.
“What?”
“I said, Some men think they have become lord over me.”
“Why would I seek to be your lord? Why would anybody, cat?”
“We go through the forest. It is only trees and bush.”
“What is this ill spirit in you all of a sudden? I said I have been to the Darklands. It’s a place of bad enchantments. You stop being yourself. You won’t even know what that self is.”
“Self is what men tell themselves they are. I am just a cat.”
His rudeness made no sense and I have seen him at his most brash. It was too quick, like some boil hidden for years that just burst. Then the boil opened his mouth.
“Through the Darklands in one day. Around the lands is three days. Any man with sense would make the choice,” Fumeli said.
“Well, man and boy, choose whatever you want. We go round,” I said.
“The only way forward is through, Tracker.”
He grabbed the horse and started walking. Fumeli followed.
“Everyone finds what they are looking for in the Darklands. Unless you are what they are looking for,” I said.
But they were no longer looking. Then the Ogo started to follow them.
“Sadogo, why?” I asked.
“Maybe he thinking he tired of your fat verse,” Fumeli said. “Everyone finds what they are looking for in the Darklands. You sound like those men with white hair and shriveled skin, who think they talking wise when they just talking old.”
The Ogo turned to answer but I cut him off, although I should have let him explain for days. At least that would have kept him from following them.
“Never mind. Do what you have to,” I said.
“Seems like the boy finds his use,” Sogolon said, then rode off with the girl.
I mounted my horse and followed her. The painted girl held on to Sogolon’s sides, her right cheek resting on her back. Evening was running after us, and doing it in the quick. Sogolon stopped.
“Your men, any of them ever travel through the Darklands?”
“The Leopard said it’s only bush.”
“None of them ever go before, not even the giant?”
“The Ogo. Ogos do not like to be called giant.”
“His small brain is all that is saving him.”
“Make your meaning clear, woman.”
“I clear as river water. They not going to reach the other side.”
“They will if they stay on the path.”
“You already forget. That is what the forest hoping you do.”
“They will have much to tell us on the other side.”
“They not going to reach the other side.”
“What is this bush?” the painted girl said.
“Do you not have a name?”
“Venin, I told you.”
“You going back for your friends?” Sogolon asked.
“They are not my friends.”
I looked at her and Venin, and the sky.
“Where is Bunshi?”
Sogolon laughed. “How long you going take to find the missing if you take this long to notice the gone?”
“I don’t track the goings and comings of witches.”
“Will you go for them?”
“None would show me gratitude for it.”
“Gratitude is what you seeking? You come cheap.”
She grabbed the reins.
“You wish to save them, save them. Or don’t. What a band of fellows this turn into. Bunshi and her fellowship of men, which is why it fail before it even begin. Cannot make fellowship with men. A man alive is just a man in the way. Maybe we meet again in Mitu, if not Kongor.”
“You say that as if I am going back.”
“I will see you or I will not. Trust the gods.”
Sogolon rode off in a gallop. I did not follow.
TEN
The witch was right. I turned off into the bush before I got to the path. The horse pulled up. I rubbed his neck. We stepped through the bush. I thought there would be cool mist but wet heat swept in and pushed sweat out of my skin. White flowers opened and closed. Trees stretched far into sky with foreign plants bursting out of the trunks. Some vines hung loose, others swung back up into the trees, where leaves blocked most of the sky, and the sky that could be seen already looked like night. Nothing swung or swayed, but sounds bounced in the bush. Water drizzled on me, but was too warm to be rain. Off in the distance three elephants blared and startled the horse. You could never trust the animals in the Darklands.