“At the top is the Darklands, not a killing, but a witness sailing the White Lake say he see a big black beast with bat wings flying over to some people already on shore. They didn’t anchor. Then a report from Kongor, then this part, Mitu-Kongor Road—family running a roadside inn—”
“Skip the bodies.”
“Mitu-Kongor Road again, then eight days later, Dolingo. A quartermoon later, Nigiki, Luala Luala, Blood Swamp.”
“The same places in reverse, give or take a place. They following a pattern. Since when vampire have such discipline?”
“You asking me? That not even the strangest thing. Mitu-Kongor Road, then eight days later, Dolingo? New page, another entry over half year later, Dolingo again, then five days later, the same road? From Dolingo to Mitu is almost three moons, and that is by horse. Maybe a moon and a half by river. How they getting to these places so quick?”
“She ever mention Malakal?”
“Up here, yes.”
“I going guess that either before or after it is the east coast.”
“Yes, yes, right here.”
“That black bitch.”
“Who?”
“Somebody from the river who should stay there.”
That water sprite must did know. Have to, and just waiting on me to discover it myself. Ipundulu and his band of blood drinkers are using the doors.
“How many names listed before a repeat?” I ask him.
“Ten and nine,” he say.
“I need a list in a tongue I can read.”
“Hold, there is more, on this new leaf. Somewhere between Mitu and Dolingo. They don’t say for sure. They pick up a boy.”
“What? What else it say? What else?”
“Nothing, just that it is a boy. They traveling with a boy. Here is what they say. The boy come to a door with all sort of crying, and they let him in.”
“That entry, where from?”
“The Enchantment Hi— Hills of Enchantment.”
“You say before this was a new book.”
“Yeah, not even here a year, but I can confirm with the records.”
“I need news newer than this, old man.”
“Is bookkeeper me name. If it not written then I don’t know.”
“Or you don’t care?”
“It not real until it on the page.”
“It too late by the time it get to the page.”
“You judging me? You think this is some archive?”
“This is a tomb. By the time we read what is in your walls, it no longer have no use.”
“You telling me that my hall don’t serve no use? If it wasn’t for these dead words some people would never know who they be. You out here thinking you doing what? Fixing a wrong? You think your wrong is the first? If all of your kind did read, then maybe the last wrong would stay last and you wouldn’t be here insulting books that do nothing but hold truth you can’t keep. Get out!”
“That is not what I say.”
“You just call my hall a tomb!”
“All I want—”
“And yet you still want something on top of your insult. Which of the nine world shit you out?”
I don’t want to fight this man. So I tell him that all I want is news so new that he will have to write it himself. All these years, all these books, all of it the words of others. What about your voice, I ask him. Your book? He see through my words but they work anyway.
“Only one way to hear tidings before they tide,” he say and disappear down a dark corridor. Many things shift, slip, fall, and crash in the dark before he return with a talking drum.
“The strings too loose. When I squeeze the body under my arm the note might not be high enough. I can’t swear for the pitch. You understand me? Tapping the high note four times mean ‘tell me what you know.’ Ease the string and let one beat hum low, then tighten in the middle of the same beat, and it say, ‘the strange people’ and ‘people of the blood.’ But if the string come lose in the middle of the hum that all I telling them is that the ‘moon is full and beautiful.’ Alas the drum is many tones just as your tongue is many tones. Maybe who hear it will know what I asking and reply,” he say, then take the stairs far back and go to the roof.
Night lose herself to day when he come knocking on my door. I did tell that I would come back, but the freshness of the tidings give him plenty vigor. He still pounding into air when I open the door.
“The Hills of Enchantment! Tidings come that they last seen in the hills.”
“When?”
“Little over a moon. So if one moon ago they set upon the hills, where next they going to be?”
“Nigiki,” I say. “No door waiting nearby so they might still be in the south. Maybe they stop in Wakadishu.”
“Something still too uncanny,” he say.
“These accounts, they mention Ipundulu and others, and this boy. But who they don’t mention is his witch. Ipundulu still answer to his witch. She command him as much as she can, he do her bidding, as much as he wants, and she the one who direct him to fresh blood. But none of this mention a witch. Which mean you not looking for Ipundulu at all, woman. You looking for a masterless bird. An Ishologu.”
“That sound bad.”
“Praise the gods, it worse than worse. At least an Ipundulu under some control. Ishologu under nobody, so he just acting out of pure bloodlust. No teacher, no master, no method, no nothing but chaos.”
TWENTY-THREE
Only Kongor put the dead in urns big enough for a living woman to hide in with her child. Maybe they offering the dead to the gods as nourishment in a vessel meant for storing water or oil, but nobody is around to ask. There is only the dead. Basu Fumanguru, his wife and children murdered, embalmed and left alone in his house. This I know, that after the Kongori place the dead in these large jars, they bury them. They do it with some care. But nobody come for this family, nobody want to touch them, nobody bury them. Judging from the overgrowth of thornbush all around the house, nobody come to the house since.