“The boy. He is here,” I say.
He shout curses at me, but I leave him for the room outside. Two guards stand at a door, three more across from me, in a green room, dim and with torch lights. Just then the torch lights blow out. Come on again. Blow out. So we go again with this shit, one of the guards say. Then the door open, slam shut, then open again. A guard rush in, saying that the cell gates keep unlocking again, and this wild shit been happening all quartermoon. The door slam again, right on a guard’s finger. One of them say they done with it now, leave and come back with a ladder, which he use to climb into a hatch in the ceiling. A thump first, a punch, a slap, then a squeal, more grunts, and cursing. And while all this going on, torch fire come, then go, then come back, doors swing in and out, and the one window swing open, then close. Everything shudder, then everything still.
Two enter, three leave. Both of them, hoods hiding their heads, robes hiding the rest. The guards so fast to get out of their way that one walk into the wall. One remove the hood to reveal his spidery white locks. The other loosen his robe enough to expose the shifty, meaty hump on his right shoulder. They close the door behind them. The Tracker is the Tracker, laughing, mocking, insulting, saying something smart that I don’t hear. But I hear something muffling his throat. And then nothing. For a long time, maybe too long. Long enough for me to see from the guards’ nodding and whispering what this mean. And then it come, a mumble first, and shout into the gag—words he trying to say. And then a bawl. Then he scream, then he scream louder, and louder than that, and louder still. And he scream into a cough, which turn into a bawl like somebody cutting his leg off without opium. Then he scream again, long and loud, a scream that run all the way down the corridor and vanish into the dark. And still he screaming. One of the guards vomit.
“Mwaliganza, the fifth tree. We see him there, and others. Find him in the old apothecary and her house,” the first scientist say as he leave.
The second emerge, his body bare down to his waist. White and thin his skin, I can see the blood routes and how they work. He is following the first when a slab of flesh slither out the door. The guard jump. The slab look like the hind quarter of a pig. It wail and squeal and pop an eye open. Not a head, a lump with lumps and a mouth always open and drooling spit along the floor. He pull himself along with his long bony hands, still shrieking, until he catch the scientist, yank himself up to his waist, crawl slow up his back, then wrap one hand around his waist, where it disappear in fold of skin. The other hand pop claws and dig into his chest. I couldn’t see and don’t want to. The hump settle back on his right shoulder as the scientist cover himself and walk away.
“Mwaliganza! Now!” I shout. The soldiers outside, twenty and nine more all run. Venin not running.
“Not in this world or another I fighting your fucking fight,” he say.
“You still not going get far,” I say.
“Unless you die,” Venin say.
* * *
—
No sky caravan take us direct to Mwaliganza. We have to take it to Mungunga, rush to another one heading to Mkora, and from there take the only caravan leaving. The craft almost clear of Mkora when we see it several floors below in the big public square. An explosion of brown, like something drop on an ant’s nest to make them scatter. “What is that?” one of the guards shout. We at least ten floors above it. Them. The mass is brown because they all naked, except for the pieces of rope probably still on them. Another explosion of brown, like a wave upon a wave spilling more into the plaza. The slaves? one ask. The slaves! another shout. What slaves? shout another. But they overrun the square, trampling everyone underfoot. The slaves done rebel. They sweeping Mkora like a flood, shocking and confusing the soldiers. Nobody read anything into the chairs sticking, the doors slamming, the boy jumping from the Tracker’s ledge. That the fan refuse to swing was a slave refusing to swing it, and the bath refuse to fill itself with water was a slave refusing to fill it. Truth, I never think nothing of any of it. The soldiers all shouting for this caravan to move faster, still not thinking that is slaves pulling it. Until, several paces from the dock, they stop. We kick out the front doors and jump into the river. A soldier thank the gods that it was not deep. From the dock we looking over at Mkora, as slaves keep bursting through doors like flood. An explosion shake us. An explosion now at Mwaliganza.
“You know your orders!” I shout at them.
But I can’t tear myself from the sight either. The slaves rebelling. I try to cut off what they brimming up in me. No, flooding me. Royal Courts. Kings, King Sisters, and Queens. A trail of impaled bodies all because of the word of one King. Me taking all of it as just the way. Even when I hate it, I accept it, even when I hate fate, I accept it. Shock come but it don’t push out the shame. Rebellion. We suffer, we survive, we endure. None of us ever think, we rebel. I snap myself back.
“Go!” I say.
We at the door of the old apothecary’s house and shop. The door is open, most likely because no slave is keeping it shut. I don’t know soldier tactics and they don’t know to take orders from any woman save their Queen. And these gold ceremonial weapons for people who never had to fight in any war. These damn gold weapons. Two step in ahead of me and before the third one pass, my wind (not wind) push him back. Behind us the tumble of slaves bursting borders, the good nobles screaming, bawling, and getting ripped to bits. I imagine the rebels sun-shocked, staggering, powering themselves with hate if might won’t do. The soldiers jump with every explosion, with every shout, with every roar, and with every shake. Some run off.
“You can’t beat a fight with a dance,” I say to those near me. “Your Queen give you orders.”
Upstairs is a room, just a room, like a lesson hall. But up another floor, a child’s cry. Quiet but forlorn and insisting that you hear it. The two in front of me march up one more flight. Nobody have any tactics, nobody speaking any code, nobody given any signs. Keme had signs, Keme and his Red Army. I don’t know why that thought choose now to come, but I dismiss it. This floor is emptier than the one before, making me wonder what exactly this apothecary sell. Gray walls wearing away back to the orange behind it. But it is not empty, just misty. Banking us on both sides, stools with oils, potions, powders, a line of birthing chairs, odd since nobody in Dolingo birthing the barbarian way. I about to curse myself for thinking like them when the boy’s cry draw me further in. We shuffle over to him and see the shape of two boys. One floating in the air, still, with bugs buzzing around him, perhaps dead. The other, his back to us, still crying.
“Little boy, little boy, come now. End with the crying,” say a soldier.