“I not no apprentice.”
“You have training. And if not training then some form of enchantment to open a door.”
“I didn’t open any door in the Darklands.”
“A door can’t open itself. Like I say, if not training then some sort of Sangoma enchantment. When Bunshi said you have gifts, this must be what she mean. Must be why she never seem worried about losing time, no matter how long you gone. Why, when you can eat time in just one step? Only people I see with that gift are divine born and Sangomin.”
“I used to live with one. Me and the Leopard. Well, visit.”
“Don’t need to stay long to learn necromancy.”
“You seem to be confusing her with a witch. You the one who slice up babies. We used to save mingi children.”
“No, you used to recruit for a Sangomin child army. And I not a witch.”
“Is you they call the Moon Witch, not me. So if I—if we really been gone for a whole moon, what did you and the water goddess find about the child? About Fumanguru? Nothing? Nothing in the whole moon.”
I just look at him.
“You go by his house?” he ask.
“The house was waiting on your skills, not mine.”
“Hmph. Maybe your skills don’t call for much mind work.”
“I must be a blunt instrument,” I say.
“Well, no wonder I still think only a day pass if after twenty and eight we not any closer to Fumanguru’s boy. Or maybe nobody is earnest about finding him except Bunshi.”
“See to your cat and giant,” I say. “And your—and the archer.”
The Ogo is more blank than when last I see him, and the Leopard is more snarly than the Wolf Eye. Neither strong enough to stand for long, much less walk. Both talk about a man monkey in the bush, working up to a mania before they fall asleep again. I pass the giant’s room later in the day. The Tracker is in there with him, sitting on the floor, while the giant is punching his palms in his iron gloves and setting off sparks.
“I itch to kill,” he say.
“That might happen soon.”
“When do we go back to the Darklands?”
“When? Never.”
At least the Ogo could punch and shake the floor. The Leopard shaking only himself when he stand. He almost fall before I run into the room and catch his shoulder, which still bring us down to our knees. The Leopard apologize. He don’t know why his legs still won’t work, and when they do, why not for long. Most of the day he is just lying on these sheets like a dying cat. I almost ask where he is, the archer, but then picture him already making it to the Tracker’s floor. I almost became prey, he mumble to himself, the third time I hear him say it, as if it mystify him even more so than scare. I look at him and wonder about my lion, even though lions hate leopards.
“You’re the Moon Witch,” he say.
“Yes,” I say, girding myself for another argument.
“A lot of the wrongs in this world you have righted. That I know for a fact.”
“I . . . what?”
“I have many sisters, in spirit if not in blood. Walk with heads high they do, and brave as warriors because looking out for them is the Moon Witch. They will not believe I have met you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I reply. But quick as a blink his mind gone somewhere else.
“There are holes in the ground, baked clay and hollow like bamboos,” he say.
“Piss and shit in them and the hole take it away. Kongor is unlike other cities in what she does with piss and shit. Apologies. My head is going again. Who put us in this place?” he say, pulling himself up to his elbows.
“Some old pervert who like to cook,” the Tracker say. He is in the doorway looking as bad as the cat, but at least he is standing. “Oh it was nothing, saving you.”
“So it’s thanks you want? You the reason we end up in the damn forest.”
“I will leave you two,” I say.
“Stay,” say the Leopard. “Not much I want to hear from him anyway.”
“We have to stay and find the boy since this witch wasted a full moon,” the Tracker say.
“If you stay, then I leave,” say the Leopard.
“As you wish. Is that Fumeli’s wish?”
“Fuck the gods, what a question.”
“Tell me, can you stand? Change form? Even a lazy, half-blind bowman with lousy aim wouldn’t miss you. I will tell the slaver that you no longer wish to find the child,” the Tracker say.
“Don’t speak for me.”
“Fumeli can speak for you. He already doing the thinking.”
“Speak like that again and—”
“And what? Change into a cat or some sniveling little bitch?”
The Tracker laugh. The Leopard is furious. He rise from the rugs but stumble.
“Get out,” I say.
“Don’t give two fucks for your orders,” the Tracker say. “You who couldn’t manage a little search in a whole moon. I—”
The wind (not wind) sweep him off his feet, throw him out the door, and slam it before he could bang at it. All the shouting soon tire him out, and he go away.
“You two look like friends the first time I see you.”
“Well, appearances,” the Leopard say.
“Not you the one who bring him along?”
“Not me, Bunshi. I just made the offer. And yes he was a friend until the Darklands, when he chose to only save himself.”
“In the Darklands many a man is not himself.”
“Except that is exactly what he is. It’s the Ogo who turn back to save us, and only because he saw the door was still open. He didn’t even try to get us. Didn’t even look back. I’m sure he told the others that it’s the Ogudu, the little curse. And none of us remembering right. But I remember. If he staying with this mission, I leaving.”
“And the archer?”
“He can speak for himself.”
The boy enter right then as if the words summon him. He carrying bow and quiver and standing up too straight, puffing his chest out too far. Trying to look like a man but the Darklands put a spell on him too. I look at him and wonder what truly is his use.
“Tracker’s chamber is on the second floor, if you wish to stay out of his way,” I say.
“No it not, it’s on the third,” the boy say, as quick as I knew he would. He shut himself up and look away, glancing at me twice to see me looking at him.
“We hunt a boy, do we not?” the Leopard ask.
“You don’t remember?”
“Yes and no.”