“High time you all stop telling me what to do,” say the magistrate.
“Look, he was as interested in Fumanguru’s fate as you are, and that nearly got him killed. Now he has nowhere to go back to,” the Tracker say to me.
“Sound like his problem,” I say.
“Oh, you think the Aesi hunting him won’t become your problem? Yes, woman, we know of the Aesi too. Among other things.”
“I told you not to speak for me,” say the magistrate, Mossi.
“Oh shut up, Mossi,” the Tracker say.
The Ogo help down Venin from a tree with a care I didn’t think the giant was capable of. She hold on to his arm, even when she firm on the ground. We walk a little farther, right to the center of where the roads meet.
“You commanded the wind back there? Fascinating,” the magistrate say.
“Is not wind.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“F—”
“You witches and your crossroads,” the Tracker say.
“Is for you, not me,” I say, amazed at how quickly he can irritate me. “You and Bunshi done have words already.”
“I can’t tell if your mood is sour or if that is how you always look. I know who he is, you know. The boy.”
“Aje o ma pa ita yi onyin auhe.”
“The hen doesn’t even know when she will be cooked so perhaps she should listen to the egg,” he say and wink at me.
“Who you think he is, this boy?” I ask.
“Somebody this Aesi is trying with all his might to find before you do. And it all points to the King in one way or another. And don’t tell me it’s Fumanguru’s son, because I don’t like time wasting any more than you do.”
“The King want to erase the Night of the Skulls, that child—”
“That child is who he was after all along. I have read Fumanguru’s writs, woman.”
“You find them.”
“People really should read more. That’s what libraries are for. But you pass through only a few days ago.”
“My smell.”
“Still there. And you didn’t find it? The great Moon Witch. Or it’s not what you went looking for. That is it.”
“You still think I care about the writs.”
“You should,” the Tracker say. “He was giving instructions on what to do with the child when we find him. Word on top of words was a big thing with your elder.”
“Talk plain.”
“What I said. He wrote notes on top of the words in milk. He said to take the child to the Mweru. You stare at me. So quiet you are. Walk through Mweru and let it eat your trail, that is what he said.”
“Of course. Of course. No man ever map the Mweru, and no god either. The child would be safe.”
“Might as well say he will be safe in hell.”
“Bunshi lead us here because there is a door, Tracker,” I say.
“Tell me who the child is before I find out. You know I will,” say he.
“Open it.”
“Who is the boy?”
“You all keep talking about this boy. This is about the doll, isn’t it?” ask the magistrate.
“A doll?” This come out of nowhere.
“Some family this is, where nobody speaks. No—you’re exactly like family,” say the magistrate. “So yes, a doll found in the house, a child’s toy. Except no mother of Kongor would have given her child a doll. Terrible sin, you see, to train a child to have idols. A child in Kongor, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be Kongori. So whoever killed the Fumangurus failed to kill one . . . which I will guess is this child you all speak of. No? Clearly a child of great import to have such . . . people hunting him. I thought this Tracker was holding back, but he clearly doesn’t know.”
I liking this magistrate. But this don’t explain why he is here, or why I should let him come with us instead of killing him.
“Whoever following us is still following,” the Ogo say to the Tracker, and he finally nod, step away from us, clasp his hands, and whisper some chant. Sangoma antimagic. A spark set off, then split in two, spreading into a fiery circle big as a house, then dying out.
“There it is, witch, the flame died and there is no door. Because we are in the crossroads, where there would be no door in the first place. I know you are from lower folk, but even up to a few days ago you must have seen what we call a door,” the Tracker say.
“Will he shut up soon?” Mossi say to the girl and even she laugh. I smile too, knowing how much it enraged the Wolf Eye. We don’t go too far before we on a different road, not more mud, but stone, no warm air but cold, not flat path but a slight uphill.
“This . . . this is neither Mitu nor Kongor,” Mossi say.
“Even a Sangoma, when she’s not whining like an unfed bitch, can do mighty feats. Or just this,” I say and ride off, leaving the magistrate exclaiming to the girl and annoying the Ogo. I am too old now, clearly. Too old to see when a man, even this giant, have warm feelings for a woman. I slow down for the Tracker to mount my horse.
“The Aesi might be following you through dreams,” I say.
“I only had one dream with him.”
“Don’t sleep tonight. Neither you nor the magistrate.”
“But sleep already claims me, Moon Witch.”
“Then find something to do.”
“I know who your boy is,” the Tracker whisper.
“You mean Bunshi’s boy,” I say.
* * *
—
We won’t be getting anywhere this night but lost, so we take rest off the road. Mossi and the Tracker build a fire and watching them I can’t help but wonder how the fire in the Hall of Records start. Then the Tracker try to annoy everybody to keep himself awake, so much that the magistrate finally pull him away and they go off to the river, running along part of the trail. I hear him explaining to the magistrate how his nose work, how once he have a smell he can follow it anywhere over land and sea, and how the first time he discover his gift he nearly cut his nose off from madness. And how he can follow that scent until the person die, and how the living, woman, man, beast, all smell different, but the dead all smell the same. He picked up the boy’s smell at Fumanguru’s house and now the smell is pulling him south, maybe Dolingo, maybe farther. But before, his smell would fade only to come back strong, like the boy couldn’t make up his mind where to go. Now it get stronger the more they travel, and when they came through that door it was as if the boy ran right into his face.
Then one of them scream and before I jump, a splash in the river. Then another splash, then no talking. I can’t tell in the time of silence if the fire eat itself out, or if I am just thinking it. I roll over to sleep, knowing—no, hoping that my mind is still unknowable to the Aesi. But it is too quiet.
It is their clothes at the edge of it that stop me from falling off the cliff. Below, the river. On the banks with moonlight riding their skin, the Tracker on his back with his legs spread like they running away from each other, the magistrate above him, in him, fucking him.
TWENTY-FOUR