Then he plucked the strings and let the kora alone speak, and I left before he sang more. I ran outside because I was a man, and string and song should never affect me so. Outside, where nothing could suck all the air out of one place. And where I could say it was wind that made my eyes wet, truth it was wind. Out on the rock the prefect stood, wind running past him, whipping his hair. The kora was still playing, riding air, sending sadness all the way down the trail we came. I hated this place, I hated that music, and I hated this wind, and I hated thinking about mingi children, for what were children to me and what use was I to children? And that was not it, that was not it at all, for I never think of children, and they never think of me, but why would they forget me and why would I care that they forget? For what good it be that they remember and why did I remember, and why did I remember now? And I tried to stop it. I felt it coming up, and I said, No, I will not think of my brother who is dead, and my father who is dead and my father who was my grandfather, and why should anybody want anybody? Just have nothing, just need nothing. Fuck the gods of all things. And I wanted day to go and night to come, and day to come again new and cut off from everything before, like a shit stain on cotton that comes out in the wash. Mossi was still standing there. Still not looking at me.
Sadogo, you go to sleep? The sun is not even done with the day.”
He smiled. On the roof, he made a space, with rugs and rags and cloths, with several cushions for a pillow. “I witness only nightmares these few days,” he said. “Best I lie here and not punch a hole through a wall and bring the house down.” I nodded.
“The nights grow cold in these lands, Ogo.”
“The old man found me rugs and rags, besides I feel little of it. What do you think of Venin?”
“Venin?”
“The girl. She rides with Sogolon.”
“I know who she is. I think we found the boy.”
“What? Where is he? Your nose—”
“Not through my nose. Not yet. There is much distance between us and him. Right now he is too far away for me to guess. They might be in Nigiki, on the way to Wakadishu.”
“Both are half a moon away. And it will take days to get from one to the next. I may not be smart as Sogolon, but even I know.”
“Who questions your mind, Ogo?”
“Venin called me simple.”
“That little girl who was never more proud when she was Zogbanu meat?”
“She is different. Different from only three days ago. Before she never spoke, now she grunts like a jackal and is always sour. And she listens not to Sogolon. Have you seen it?”
“No. And you are not simple.”
I went over beside him and crouched down.
“Deep in skill he is,” the Ogo said.
“Who?” I asked.
“The prefect. I watch him train. He is master of some art.”
“Master at arresting people and harassing beggars, yes.”
“You do not like him.”
“I have no feelings for him, like or dislike.”
“Oh.”
“Sadogo, I wish you to know what was spoken. The boy, he is with men not of this place, or any place of good men.”
He looked at me, his eyebrows raised but his eyes blank.
“Men who are not men, but not demons, though they may be monsters. One is the lightning bird.”
“Ipundulu.”
“You know him?”
“He is not a real him,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“This Ipundulu, long years ago, he tried to cut my heart out. I worked for a woman in Kongor. Seven nights he spent, seven nights seducing her.”
“So you have lived in Kongor. You never told me.”
“It was ten and four days’ work. But Ipundulu. Those days plenty joy he found in taking slow. He had her every night, but this night I heard only sounds from him. When I walked in he already killed her, and was eating her heart. This is what he says—What a bigger meal you shall be—so he flies and jumps on me, and takes his claw and cuts through my skin. But my skin is thick, Tracker, his claw got stuck. I grab his neck. Squeeze, I did, until it started to crack. Indeed I would pop his head off, but his witch was outside the window. She threw a spell and it blinded me for ten and six blinks. Then she helped him escape. I saw him off in the sky, his wings white, his hanging neck loose, but still carrying her.”
“He is no longer bound to that witch, or any witch. She left no heir, so now he is his own master.”
“Tracker, this is no good thing. He would rip out a child’s throat and that was when he was under her. What will he do now?”
“The boy is still alive.”
“Not even I myself am that simple.”
“If he is using the boy, then the boy is alive. You saw the ones with lightning blood. They could never hide it. And they have gone mad.”
“You speak a true thing.”
“There is more. He moves with others, four or five. We’ve heard accounts. All of them bloodsuckers, it seems they go to houses with many children. The boy knocks first, saying he ran away from monsters, and they let him in. Then deep in the night he lets them in to feed on everyone.”
“But the boy is not one of them?”
“No, but you know the Ipundulu, he must have bewitched the boy.”
“We in these lands know of him bewitching girls, but never a boy. His head I will smash myself, before he can whip his wings. Those wings bring thunder, do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“He flaps his wings and a storm blows with lightning and thunder, harder and wickeder than the wind Sogolon makes with magic.”
“Then we shall clip his wings. I will tell you of the others later.”
“And of wings, what of the man with black wings?”
“The Aesi? He also seeks for the child, and he will not rest till he finds him. But he knows neither where we are, who has the boy, nor of the ten and nine doors, or he would have used them. This is simple. We save the child and hand him back to his mother, who lives in a mountain fortress.”
“Why?”
“She is the sister of the King.”
“Confusing, is what this is.”
“I make it simple.”
“Like me?”
“No. No, Sadogo. You are not simple. Listen to me, this is not about being simple. There are things I have been told that I have no words how to tell you, that is all. But know, this child is part of a bigger thing. A truly bigger thing, and when we find him, if we keep him safe, it will echo through all the kingdoms. But we must find him before these men do kill him. And we must find him before the Aesi, for he too will kill him.”
“You said it was foolish to believe in magic boys. I remember.”
“And I still believe it to be foolish.”
I stood up and looked over the wall. The prefect was gone.
“Sadogo, I like simple. I like knowing this is what I will eat, this is what I will earn, this is where I shall go, and this is who I shall fuck. And that is still how I choose to move in this world. But this boy. It is not even that I care so much as it is we are in so deep. Let us finish it.”
“Is that all that drives you?”
“Should there be more?”
“I don’t know. But I am tired of my hands called to fight when I don’t know what to fight for. The Ogo is not the elephant, or the rhinoceros.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. There is the money. And there is something I suspect, that this child, this boy, has something to do with what is right in this world. And as much as I don’t care for this boy or even this world, yet still I move in it.”
“You care for nothing in this world?”
“No, I do not. Yes, I do. I do not know. My heart jumps and skips and plays with me. Shall I tell you something, dear Ogo?”
He nodded.
“I am no father and yet I have children. I have no child here, yet they are around me. And I know them less than I know you, but I see them in dreams and I miss them. There is one, a girl, I know she hates me, and it bothers me, because I see with her eyes and she is right.”
“Children?”
“They live with the Gangatom, one of the river tribes, at war with my own.”
“You have this girl and others?”
“Yes, others, one as tall as a giraffe.”
“You have them live with the Gangatom, though you are Ku and they war with the Ku. The Ku will kill you.”
“As you say it, yes.”
“You make me think, this ‘man is simple’ is no bad thing.”
I laughed.
“You may be speaking truth there, dear Ogo.”
“You said the boy might be in Nigiki or Wakadishu.”
“They use the same doors we used to escape the Darklands, but they use them in reverse. We had word of an attack on a household at the foot of the Hills of Enchantment that beat even their sacred magics. Twenty and four days ago, almost a moon. They spend seven to eight days in one place, killing and feeding, which means they have used the door to Nigiki. From Nigiki they kill and go to Wakadishu.”