Two nights now I sit in my room and stew. Curse this red hair man for making my wounds fresh. Nsaka Ne Vampi come calling the second night but cease knocking when I don’t answer. Meanwhile I sharpening my rage in daydreams, the side of my hand, a blade to slice the Aesi’s neck, my breath a fire to burn down to nothing. I don’t just want him dead; I want him to suffer. The third morning I streak my face in black and gold and vanish in the crowd. It still annoying me that nobody in Malakal know their own history, thanking this King who should be thanking them. I want to think that this too is the Aesi, but nobody need enchantment to write history any way they wish. The King is here and because so many road are steep, they will travel by foot. They, his soldiers, for the King will travel by palanquin. Another woman tell me that even the poor get their share of gold to wear but will be executed if they try to sell any of it. I don’t ask. As for me, I am remembering that the Aesi can’t read my head but can tell where there is a spot in the crowd that he can’t read. Drummers heat up the drumming and my heart is pounding with them. The voice want to say that is gold dust fly up in my head to make me feverish, but I know my hand is shaking, and my neck running sweat, because my head is hot with the thought of killing a man. God. Demigod. I let the push of the crowd take me far down the street. How to get close to him? Maybe use this same crowd’s push to ram into him, my knife ready for his side, to kill him before he notice. Or to stab him at that place in the neck where his feet won’t even know he is dead. Or touch him and make him explode again, his head alone this time, say the voice, surprising me with her helping. Inside my head as I am, I don’t hear the drumming shift and the crowd shifting with it, going baka baka boom. The whole street sweep up like a wave even though there is no sign yet of the procession. But they must be near.
Soldiers march past. This King want to show his might, even though it was mercenaries who saved Malakal. One would think the mighty Fasisi army, with their mighty spears, knives, clubs, and bow will cool me but they don’t. Maybe I am still the woman who think I have nothing left to live for and nothing left to lose but that leave my thought funny, like the right fruit having the wrong taste. Soldiers pass, drummers drum, women and children cheer. I jump to the side of the street to walk against the procession, to walk towards him. Too many shoulders are hitting mine, knocking me back around, almost knocking me down. Too thick this crowd, and all I have is one dagger. They squeeze in too tight, light me off my feet, and take me with them into an alley. I shout, and grab, and kick, and punch my way back out to the street, but the King done pass. Truth, I could grab anyone right now and kill them in my anger. You all in league with him, I am thinking. You all in league.
The rooftops are the only way I can follow and I running along rooftops before thinking about it. The wind (not wind) making me jump over roofs, and skip across alleys, and for once I shouting at her to stop. As if anybody looking above to see me ride sky. You really going do it this time, you going to find him in this crowd, for you know he is there, and kill a demigod. It don’t matter that he will reborn himself in eight years, because then you will find him and kill too. If you find him, say the voice. But I not killing the man to stop him from being born. I not looking for peace, and I not looking to close no void. I killing him to kill him. There, in a gold palanquin carried by four tall men is Kwash Dara. He almost lost in the gold drapes that keep blowing in his face, looking like a child somebody scoop up. Spearmen march along his left, archers along his right. White guard pick up the rear, but no Aesi. Of course, he not one for the middle of a parade, he not one for black and gold. Man like him work in shadow, and everything casting shadow. Maybe he gone long ahead or he far behind, maybe he walking in the crowd, maybe he already seen me. Maybe he is watching me all this time or watching out for wherever could come an attack on the king, including above. Red hair. Weaving the people on the other side of the road. Is him, have to be him. No, red feathers on woman’s head. Red again. No. Red hair again. No. Maybe he see me. Maybe I am not hunter but prey. He is hunting me. Bunshi’s voice at the back of my head, a whisper telling me not to go after him. I know he is here. He must be. Shadows moving along the roof, clouds blocking the sun. But then I look up and is not clouds, but crows.
I run, but they diving after me. I don’t get to the edge of the roof before some snag my hair, some flapping wings in my hair, and some clawing at my chest and back. My wind (not wind) not helping, and I scream a curse that get lost in their shrieking. Then just so my feet get cold, then my calves, then my knees. I pull crows away from my face long enough to see black fluid pooling around my feet, riding up my legs, covering me until it reach all the way to my eyes and all I see is black.
The next thing I see is my room, with Bunshi by the window about to leave.
“He didn’t march in the parade,” she say.
“I never—”
“If he was in Kongor, I would have sensed him.”
“Why I should believe you?”
“Because if he was here, I wouldn’t have come to save you.”
“I don’t need no saving.”
“Of course. Your wind was going to sweep down in a blink and blow everything away.”
“You pick up wisdom now? Then why the crows if he not here?”
“You think he wouldn’t send an enchantment to protect the king? Everybody marching north, but you walking south. Everybody on the street, you on the roof. I also stopped the two archers in the tower across the street aiming for your heart,” she say, and leave before I could say anything.
* * *
—
Six days later, at the foot of Malakal mountain and right at the mouth of the Uwomowomowo Valley, who I should see coming to join our riding party but the Leopard, the archer, and the Tracker, who ask for the Ogo. Seems they change their minds and will not be driven away.
“You going to need his nose,” the slaver say to me when I confront him in his cabin.
“We need a hound, not a wolf,” I say.
“This wolf have an uncanny nose. Besides, how you going find a child who leave no trace? Nobody have a thing, not a swaddling cloth, not a rag, not a hair, nothing. He will find in Kongor what many have not.”
“And if he don’t?”
“He will.”
“Those words yours or Bunshi’s?”
“The water goddess, she—”
I cut him off. “Sprite. Sprite is what she is,” I say.
“She say he ride with you.”
“You expect me to trust him?”
“I don’t have expectations for none of you. Ask Bunshi,” he say.
The slaver give us silver for expected and unexpected costs, then bid goodbye to the manservant, who mount a horse and say he is coming with us. The Ogo, back from the river, nod with that look on his face that say what must happen will happen. Nyka and Nsaka not having that at all. They don’t have to, Nsaka say and pull the tapestry off a cage to reveal a lightning madwoman, silver light flashing from inside her head all the way down to her toes. I grab Nsaka.
“Which Ipundulu she follow? How you know is the right one?”
She look at me like the look alone is an answer. Nyka open the cage and the woman spring out, sniff the air, then dash off like a mad dog, heading east.
“Your hound head the wrong way, oh,” the Tracker shout, but neither pay him any mind. They mount a chariot and ride off.
TWENTY-TWO