“What a man lover like you doing smelling a woman’s koo?” she say, which drop shock on his face, then rage.
So it is shot, an arrow straight missing her forehead. Some boy, several steps below, already drawing his bow. I done see enough. The wind (not wind) drop like a blast on the landing, and blow them all away. All of them I pin against the wall as I step past them, the Leopard snarling, the Tracker cursing, the arrowman barreling down more steps, Nyka laughing out loud, and Ne Vampi yelling at me to quit. A weight touch my shoulder and make me stagger. I am thinking a pillar fall on me but it is the Ogo. My wind (not wind) let everybody drop. The Tracker howl in rage.
“So you know each other?” say Bunshi, and I remember how many times I want to slap her.
“This is who you think going find this boy?” I say.
“You two know each other,” Bunshi say, not even hearing me.
“Black mistress, have you not heard? We are old friends. Better than lovers since I shared his bed for six moons. And yet nothing came to pass, eh, Tracker? Did I ever tell you I was disappointed?” Nyka say.
“Who is this man?” Leopard asked.
“No word on me? But he told me so much about you, Leopard.”
“This son of a leprous jackal bitch is nothing, but some call him Nyka,” the Tracker say, then go on about how the son of a bitch sell him off to the Bultungi just for sport. “They took my eye!” he shout.
“And now you have a better one,” Nyka say. Even I was getting tired of his smirk.
“You leave them to kill me.”
“And yet look how they still leave you alive. Better than how you left their sisters. What my brother chose to skip is that he killed five of their number once, two of them children. All for sport.”
“You is scum too.”
“Not scum enough to kill infants.”
“I swore to every fucking god I could name that when I see you next I would kill you,” he say.
“That day is not today,” say Nsaka.
“This reunion not going well, it looking,” I say.
“You didn’t even do it for gold. Not even silver,” the Tracker shout.
“Still such a fool. You think I do it for money?” Nyka say.
“Leave now, or I swear I won’t care who I kill to get to you.”
“You leave instead, but stay, Leopard,” I say, but from what I see of him, the cat would not.
“Where he goes, I go,” he say.
“Then both of you leave,” Bunshi try to shout but it come out as a yelp. Truly, I want to slap this woman. The Tracker, the Leopard, and the archer all leave.
* * *
—
I wake up and all of Malakal turn gold and black. So much gold that at first I am thinking the sun was rising lower or shining twice as bright. But when I look out the window there it is, shirting every roof, every arch, every doorway, pole, and flagstaff, strands of gold and black stripes, the colors that tell of the richness of the North empire and the ruler, Kwash Dara. Windows with patterns in gold leaf, plants hanging from gold rings, and also this—nobody stealing them. Malakal was never a realm to wake up early, but everybody done start the day without me. Perplex me is what they do with all this preparation for there is no sign of it last night or the night previous. Banners on walls, crowns on heads, sashes on women, robes on men, even a path for the royal procession flanked with gold spears, all of which somebody do last night.
Memory was forcing me to think of the Nnimnim woman who restore chunks of my past but not all of it, saying no science, math, or enchantment that powerful. But there is one memory so fresh, real, and raw that I can almost smell it. Kwash Dara coming to Malakal. Kwash Dara, the spider king, with his extra four limbs ahead of him. Some sores heal and some sores fester. The sharpened edge of the knife getting sharper and is two more days before we leave this place. I leave my room, but it feel like the room push me out. See me walking down Malakal’s tricky roads, a steep climb to a steep drop, to snake around a corner and jump over a dead end. One gold-and-black flag lead me to the next, one gold ribbon lead me to the next, one woman with gold-and-black breasts lead me to another, on and on until I reach the palace of the Malakal grand chief.
“Is here he going stay?” I ask a woman whose face split in half, black and gold.
“You would put the king someplace else?” she say and dance away.
“They arrive in two days,” say the next woman I ask.
If I know Bunshi, she spend all night convincing the Wolf Eye to join the search. Woman who don’t feel secure unless a man at the helm is an argument I stop having back when somebody once ask who is the Moon Sorcerer guiding the Witch. Always blinkered, that sprite. Seeing what she want to, and blind to what she don’t, even if it in front of her.