“I like how the Ogo think. And if—”
It flew past my face so fast I thought it was a trick. Then another flew right past my head. The third came straight at my face and as if coming for my eyes, but I blocked it and its claws scratched my hand. One came for the Ogo’s shoulder and he swatted it so quick and hard that it exploded in a cloud of blood. Birds. Two went for his face and he dropped the griot. He swatted away one and grabbed the other, crushing it whole. One scraped the back of my neck. I grabbed it from behind and tried to snap its neck but it was stiff, it flapped and clawed and snapped at my finger. I let go and it flew around and came right back at me. Sadogo jumped in my way and swatted it. On the ground I saw what they were, hornbills, white head with a black streak of feather on top, a long gray tail, and a huge red beak that curved down, bigger than his head, for the red meant male. Another landed on the griot and flapped his wings. The Ogo moved in to grab him when I looked up.
“Sadogo, look.”
Right above us, swirling, screeching, a black cloud of hornbills. Three dived after us, then four, then more and more.
“Run!”
The Ogo stood and fought, punching and swatting and crushing in his knuckles and tearing wings, but they kept coming. Two heading for my head crashed into each other and fought on my scalp. I ran, my hand blocking my face, them scratching my fingers. The Ogo, tired of fighting, ran as well. Near the door of the house, they stopped following. Sogolon came back out and we turned around to see the swarm of birds—hundreds, if not more—clasp the griot with their claws, lifting him up slow and low above the ground, and flying him away. We said nothing.
We gathered our things, with Sogolon telling the others that the man is gone into deep wilderness to speak to spirits, which was not exactly a lie, and said we should take as much as we could carry. I said, Why would we need to, if we are less than a day to Dolingo citadel? She frowned and told the girl to grab more food. The girl hissed and said, If you want more food, go get it yourself. I wondered if Mossi was thinking as I did, and that this was not something I wanted to ask about right now. He grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around my neck for the scratch. Sogolon took one horse, the girl climbed up Sadogo’s back and sat on his right shoulder. Mossi climbed on the buffalo and they both turned and looked at me when I started walking.
“Don’t be foolish, Tracker, you will slow us down,” Mossi said.
He held out his hand and pulled me up.
Day reddened, then blackened, and we were nowhere near the Dolingo citadel. I nodded off, fell asleep on Mossi’s shoulder, jumped back in horror, and fell asleep again, this time not caring, only to wake up finding that we were still not there. Dolingo must have been one of those lands that seemed small but took two lifetimes to travel. The first time I woke up I was hard. Truth, that is why I jumped back. It must have been a dream that vanished as soon as I woke. As dreams always do. Yes, as they always do. I shifted as far away from him as I could, for to tell truth, I could smell him. Yes, I could smell everyone, but everyone wasn’t breathing much slower than everyone else. And with me cursing myself for sleeping on Mossi’s shoulder, hoping I didn’t drool or poke his back, though I shoot up when hard, not out. Of course hoping that I wasn’t hard when I was asleep only made me grow hard awake, and I thought of hornbills, and night skies, and foul water, anything.
“Good buffalo, if you tire of us, we can walk,” Mossi said.
The buffalo grunted, which Mossi took to mean stay as you are, though I wanted to climb off. But I also wished I wore thick, heavy robes this once. Not that robes hid any man’s desire. But it was not desire, it was my body holding on to a dream that my head had long let go. We were climbing slightly, into cooler night air, and passing small hills and great rocks.
“Sogolon, you said we are in Dolingo. Then where is it?” I asked.
“Silly, stupid, tracking idiot. Do you think we pass mountains? Look up.”
Dolingo. Not much had passed since we left the griot’s house, but as the bush grew thick with trees, I thought we were swerving around great rocks to avoid climbing them. I would have fallen off the buffalo, had Mossi not grabbed my hand.
Dolingo. These were not great rocks, even though they were as wide as mountains—a thousand, six thousand, maybe even ten thousand paces all around—but the trunks of trees with little branches sprouting low. Trees as tall as the world itself. At first, looking up, all I could see were lights and ropes, something reaching taller than the clouds. We came upon a clearing wide as a battlefield, enough for me to see two of them. The first spread as far as the field; the second, smaller. Both trunks rose through clouds and beyond. Mossi grabbed my knee, I am sure without thinking. The first had an edifice, maybe of wood or mortar or both that wrapped around the base of the trunk, and rising five floors, each floor maybe eighty to a hundred paces high. Light flickered from some windows and blazed bold from others. The trunk rose dark, and continued even higher, past more clouds, where it split like a fork. On the left, what looked like a massive fort, huge plain walls with high windows and doors, another floor on top, and another floor on top of that, going on and on for six floors, with a deck on the fifth and a platform hanging off, held by four ropes that must have been as thick as a horse’s neck. At the very top, a compound with the magnificent towers and roofs of a grand hall. On the right, the branch went unadorned as high as the forts, with a one palace on top, but even that palace had many floors, planks, decks, and roofs of gold. Clouds shifted, the moon shone brighter, and I noticed that the fork had three necks, not two. A third branch, thick as the other two, and dressed with buildings finished and buildings being built. And a deck that stretched longer than all others, so far that I thought it would soon break off. From the deck hung several platforms, pulled up and down by ropes. What number of slaves did it take to pull them? And what kind of now was this, what kind of future, where people built high and not wide? On top of, but not beside each other? Where were the farms and where were the cattle, and without them what did such people eat? Farther out in the great expanse, seven more towering trees stood high, including one with massive shiny planks that looked like wings, and a tower shaped like a dhow sail. The other, the trunk pointed slightly west, but the structures shifted slightly east, as if all the buildings were sliding off the base. From branch to branch, building to building, ropes and pulleys, platforms, and suspended wagons moving to and from, above and below.
“What is this place?” Mossi said.
“Dolingo.”
“I have never seen such magnificence. Do gods live here? Is this home of gods?”
“No. It is the home of people.”
“I don’t know if I want to meet such people,” Mossi said.
“The women might like your myrrh musk.”
Metal crunched, gears locked. Iron hit iron, and the platform lowered. The ropes all around tightened, and pulleys began to spin. The platform, above and coming down, blocked the moon and covered us in shadow. It was as long and wide as a ship, and when it landed it shook the ground.
Mossi’s hand still grabbed my knee. Sogolon and the girl galloped ahead, expecting us to follow. The platform was already rising and the buffalo leapt up on it, sliding a little. Mossi’s hand left my knee. He hopped off and wobbled a little, with the rising platform. From a tower on high, someone turned a giant glass or silver circle, perhaps a dish, that caught the moonlight, and shone it down on the platform. We could hear cogs, and gears, and wheels. We rose higher, and as we moved closer, I could see patterns along the walls, diamond after diamond, up, down, and crossways, and balls in the same pattern, and ancient glyphs and stripes and wild lines that looked as if they still moved, as if an art master had painted with wind. We rose higher, past the trunk, taller than any bridge or road, to the three branches. On the side of the right branch, someone had painted the black head of a woman, so tall it rose higher than four floors, and on her head a wrap rose even higher.
The platform leveled with a plank and all movement stopped. Sogolon stepped off first and Venin followed, walking without looking right or left, or above, which had several orbs of light, but no string or source. So did Sadogo and the buffalo. They had been here before, but I had not. Mossi was still in shock. Sogolon and Venin left the horse standing to the side. This was the right-side branch, the branch of the palace, and on the nearest wall, a sign in a language like one I knew, with letters as tall as any man.