Tristan Strong Destroys the World

by Kwame Mbalia

  The large oblong object I’d seen before was Keelboat Annie’s boat. The goddess held it upside down, using her keel pole as a handle, so that it acted as an umbrella, sheltering everyone underneath. Lady Night, Gum Baby, and Ayanna were there, as well as a shivering Bear. Mami Wata was in back, doing her best to redirect huge waves that threatened to swallow the land whole. She pushed them off to the side to strike harmlessly at the base of the towering dunes.

  “Look!” Gum Baby called.

  Alkeans streamed down from the palaces above, including some familiar faces. A giant man crossed the beach in short, stumbling strides, outlined in powerful golden words that spoke of his strength.

  “John Henry!” cried Ayanna.

  His legs were restored, yet he walked with a limp and was struggling to pull a massive yacht through the shallows behind him. Golden letters swirled around his free hand in tight spirals. He caught me looking at them and nodded, then opened his fingers to show me what rested in his palm.

  The pair of gloves he’d given me, which I’d left on his sickbed.

  “Thank you,” he said simply.

  I nodded, then hesitated. “Your hammer—” I began.

  “Later,” he said, a sad, knowing expression in his eyes.

  “Is everyone okay?” I asked him.

  “I reckon most are, though it was mighty close.” Many citizens of the Golden Crescent peeked over the edge of the yacht, the Flying Ladies among them. Miss Sarah and Miss Rose were using their wings to shelter people from the worst effects of the storm.

  A harsh caw split the air, louder than the din of the storm. Vast black wings flapped, and my heart swelled with happiness and relief. High John and Thandiwe rode on the back of Old Familiar, the shadow crow, along with others too sick or injured to walk…including Brer Rabbit. And then a line of golden statues moved stiffly down the dunes, carrying wooden palanquins with the injured and infirm inside. I had to shield my eyes—the statues appeared as blazing figures of white-hot cursive. Nyame, just as brilliant, stepped out of one of the conveyances. He had his hands full—literally. Several babies and a young crow were cradled in his arms, and his golden eyes latched on to me almost immediately.

  We are out of time. His words boomed into my head. Soon this world will be no more.

  Gum Baby scrambled up my legs and onto my shoulder. “So, uh, Bumbletongue, Gum Baby ain’t scared or nothin’, but you got a plan, right?” Her voice was tiny, her bravado stretched thin and fear beginning to seep out.

  I looked around. Everyone wore scared expressions or put on brave faces. Another huge lightning bolt turned the entire sky white, then zigzagged to strike the top of the marina across the beach.

  CRACK!

  The building exploded in a blinding flash of broken words, and someone screamed. But before I could even let out a Sweet peaches!, a shout from Thandiwe made us all turn around.

  “No!”

  Far in the distance, Isihlangu was spiraling away into nothing. The shield of Alke was unraveling like one of Nana’s wool sweaters.

  I gritted my teeth. It was time to do some reknitting.

  “Everybody!” I shouted. “Onto the boats! I do have a plan.”

  KEELBOAT ANNIE’S BOAT AMAZED ME AT EVERY TURN.

  First, I thought it wouldn’t fit all the refugees on board. Wrong. Then I thought there was no way John Henry, Bear (even as emaciated as he looked without his armor), Brer Rabbit, and the other gods would fit, too. Wrong again. We all managed to clamber aboard, soaked to the skin, teeth chattering in our mouths.

  A ground-shaking rumble made the boat lurch to one side.

  “Look!” someone shouted. The Golden Crescent seemed to shudder and heave up, then collapse in on itself. Golden braids of story—the contents of Nyame’s Story Box, Anansi’s trickster tales, and others were carried up into the sky, lost in the brightness of another lightning strike.

  “We’re going to disappear!”

  “Help us!”

  “Do something!”

  The cries of Alkeans filled my ears as I dropped down next to Nana. She, of anyone, would know if my plan would work. If it didn’t…well, I didn’t want to think about that. The wailing around us wouldn’t let me.

  “Nana, I need your help,” I said. The boat tossed and dipped as I described what I wanted to do, and her eyebrows nearly shot off of her face. She removed her glasses, rubbed her eyes, wiped her lenses, then looked up at me and shook her head. My heart dropped into my perpetually soaked shoes. But before I could lose hope, she put a hand gently on my arm.

  “You don’t need my help to do that, baby.” She jerked her head toward the back of the boat, where the gods of Alke were trying to comfort the folks they were responsible for. “Seems like they’re more your speed. Besides, I told you I was gonna get you to try your hand at this one day. Seems like now’s as good a time as ever.” She produced her golden needle—a spare quilting needle (Now, where had she been keeping that?)—and gave it to me, using both hands to fold my fingers over the shining tool. She smiled, then brought me forward into a hug. “Strongs keep punching,” she whispered in my ear, then pushed me back and shooed me away. “Now go and save the world. I’ve got a bridge game at seven, and lord knows, if Miss Thang Ruby Lee James waits a second longer than she has to, the whole world will hear her complain.”

  I grinned, then stood and made my way carefully over to the others. I had to lean into the wind as Alke unspooled around us, the essence of this realm that was linked to mine swirling about like a sandstorm of magic. But I still had Nyame’s adinkra activated, and the gods—my friends—stood strong in the encroaching darkness like statues of gold. I took a deep breath, then pulled out the SBP. Anansi was hiding under a makeshift lean-to he’d rigged out of a few apps and some spiderwebs. “Boy, I really hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I shook my head, pausing as a vicious gust of wind nearly lifted me off the boat. “Nope. But when has that ever stopped me?” I told him my plan, and he whistled.

  “That might actually…work. It’s risky. Really risky. But…Oh, what’s the use, you’re going to do it anyway. Fine. Let me know when you need the Diaspor-app.”

  While he prepared, I got close enough to address the other gods. “There’s a way we can save your world and all the people in it…but it will take all of us.”

  John Henry grimaced in pain as he leaned on Annie’s keel pole as a crutch, the only thing big enough to support him. “What you figurin’ on doing, Tristan?”

  I took a deep breath. My heart was beating so loud I felt like it could be the rhythm of Alke on its own. “I…am going to stitch Alke into my world.”

  Silence.

  In the space between, the storm raged, the winds howled, and several gods stared at me as if I’d just loudly admitted to taking baths in peanut butter. I mean, if that’s what you like to do, go for it. No judgment here. Just not my preferred way to bathe.

  “You’re going to stitch—” Miss Rose began.

  “—our worlds together?” Miss Sarah ended. I nodded. If we didn’t act soon, we’d all be swept away no matter what.

  The boat heaved upward as a giant wave lifted us to the sky. My stomach flipped. We hung in the air forever, long enough for me to see something farther out on the Burning Sea. The sight was a punch to the solar plexus, robbing me of what little breath I had left before we crashed back down onto the water.

  “Watch out!”

  Before I could tell anyone what I’d seen, a second wave loomed overhead, a wall of white-capped gray curled like a fist ready to pound us to smithereens. Everyone grabbed something—a rail, a rope, John Henry’s leg, anything that would keep them safe. People started screaming. But before the wave could batter the boat, it began to unwind, just like the rest of Alke, strands of the sea drifting up into the devouring storm clouds.

  And what loomed behind it, what I had seen while we were in the air, was even worse.

  “Is that—?” High John began.


  “No!” someone shouted.

  “Not again!”

  “Sweet peaches,” another person whispered, and I was half surprised to realize it was me.

  Gum Baby’s grip tightened on my shoulder; even Nana’s face paled and her eyes widened at the glowing phenomenon. I pressed my lips tight together. From the outside I looked calm and determined, but really I was trying to hold back a scream.

  There, at the edge of the bay, where the normally clear blue water met the fiery dark fathoms of the Burning Sea, framed in a swirling orange-red mist, was another hole in the sky.

  It was as if someone had unzipped reality. A raging inferno gashed its way up into the clouds, and it was sucking up the poisonous storm like a vacuum, inhaling the maelstrom and sending it through to a new world fresh and unspoiled. It was a portal into a different realm—my realm. And through it I could see—

  “Is that the farm?” Nana asked faintly.

  I gritted my teeth.

  No way was I going to let anything happen to my grandparents’ farm. They hadn’t put their sweat and blood into that land just to lose it to a stupid storm. NO! It would not happen.

  “Grab the quilt!” I said, shoving one end at High John. He looked baffled, but there was no time for confusion, only action. “Grab it!” When his fingers finally closed over the border, I moved on down the line of gods. John Henry. Miss Sarah and Miss Rose. I tucked one corner into Brer Rabbit’s feeble paws. The giant rabbit’s whiskers twitched, but otherwise he didn’t move. Even Bear grabbed hold. I handed the SBP to Gum Baby, then pointed. She scrambled onto the quilt and sat in a sticky heap near the center. At least I didn’t have to worry about her blowing away.

  I took one corner of the quilt, tugged at the thread I’d so carefully stitched at the border, and pulled it loose. I held Nana’s golden needle just so while ignoring the storm screaming at us and the hole dragging us closer and closer. The angle of my wrist had to be right, or the thread—the magical essence that could tie two worlds together—might slip out of the needle.

  Push down. Pull up.

  The keelboat turned sideways as another wave surged beneath us. Someone screamed, but I didn’t take my eyes off my work.

  Push down. Pull up.

  Sewing, as it turned out, was a lot like boxing. If that sentence doesn’t make sense to you, it’s cool, give it a minute. What I mean is, you need technique. Skill. Perseverance. It takes time to get good at it. If you rush, you’ll just have to start all over, either from stitch one or round one of the next fight.

  Push down. Pull up. Tie off the thread.

  Almost finished. Just needed to add one more thing.

  The opening between worlds was a few dozen yards away. It hummed with an energy of wrongness, like an untuned electric guitar someone was playing through an amp the size of a house. It made your teeth rattle and your eyeballs itch. I couldn’t see the point where the tear met the Burning Sea, or the top, where it disappeared into the storm. Fiery mist obscured it all.

  I ripped my eyes away and surveyed the boat of refugees. Keelboat Annie had one hand on the tiller and one hand on the quilt, straining to keep us straight. A few people were crying, and I think I saw Bear comforting a small hedgehog. Everyone clutched at one another, even the gods. There was something terrifying in that, but it was also reassuring. Even the strongest of us needed support, and that was okay.

  “Mami Wata!” I called. The water goddess lifted her head from the other end of the boat, where she was working to keep us from being swamped with each newer and bigger wave. “When the next wave comes, can you direct it toward the hole?”

  Multiple sets of eyes whipped around. “You want to go through?” John Henry yelled over the storm. I didn’t answer. Instead, I looked at the Flying Ladies.

  “Do you think you two, when I give the signal, could flap your wings as hard as you can in my direction?”

  They glanced at each other. “You might—”

  “—be lost to the sea!”

  I shook my head. “I’ll be anchored tight. Right, Gum Baby? Precoffinary measures.”

  Gum Baby stared at me like I was stupid, then her eyes widened. “Ooooh. Gum Baby smell what you boiling. One set of precoffinary measures coming right up.”

  I addressed everyone else. “I don’t know if this is going to work like I want it to,” I yelled. “I don’t know if we’ll make it through together. We might get split up. But Alke is a story. As long as we keep the threads intact, this world can be rebuilt. I believe that. You have to as well.”

  I looked each one of them in the eye before I spoke, and I put every ounce of Anansesem power I had into the promise. “So hold on. If we do get separated, remember this: I know your stories. As an Anansesem, I will find you. As your friend, I. Will. Find you.”

  I wanted to say something momentous. Something that captured the changes we were about to undergo. But I didn’t have to. The storm did it for me.

  With a great peal of rolling thunder, like an avalanche in reverse, the poison having seeped into the core of the land, Alke imploded.

  The shoreline fell away. It just…dropped, caught in the jaws of an invisible shredder that ripped the world to its very fibers. As we bobbed on an endless sea, fragments of the land twisted away in the wind, great clouds of them. With Nyame’s adinkra activated, it looked like glowing spools of silk being carried up into the sky, reds and greens and silvers and golds all slipping away to be lost forever.

  Not if I could help it.

  “Now!” I shouted at Miss Sarah and Miss Rose.

  The winged goddesses let their gleaming black wings stretch out to their fullest extent, their brows furrowed and their muscles straining against the wind. Angels descending to provide aid. They shouted as one and unleashed a massive flap that ripped forward, sending fragments of Alke across the boat.

  Right toward me.

  At the same time, Mami Wata labored, pulling together a wave that was the queen of all waves, a towering behemoth of gray and white crowned in burning orange. It reared up beneath the boat, and Keelboat Annie struggled to keep the vessel straight.

  And me?

  The hero of Alke?

  Champion of a dying world?

  I quilted.

  “Golden Crescent!” I shouted. Gum Baby, sitting on my shoulder, held out her arm and I plucked off a fragment of Alke’s story thread that had become stuck to the little doll. I looped the material onto the quilting needle and went to work. When that piece had been added to the quilt, I looked up. “Nyanza next.”

  A blue-green strand was passed over.

  “The Sands.” A wheat-colored thread was attached to the quilt.

  And so it went.

  My needle went faster and faster, giving birth to a new world even as an old one died.

  MidPass.

  Isihlangu.

  The Horn.

  In my mind’s eye I saw Alke from above as I’d seen it on the back of Old Familiar, when MidPass burned during my first adventure in this realm. It was a gleaming tapestry. That’s what I was building.

  I only hoped this would work.

  Looking up, I caught John Henry’s eyes. “I’m gonna need your help to give this some power,” I said. “I’m gonna need everybody’s help.”

  John Henry stared back in confusion.

  “Remember when you and Brer Rabbit worked together to send Gum Baby through to my world? You had to give up some of your essence to make the trip between realms. For this to work, we need even more power.”

  “Tristan, we’re getting close!”

  Gum Baby, still covered in a few fragments of Alke, pointed. The tear between the worlds was a stone’s throw away. Time was up. I tied off the last stitch, stuffed Nana’s needle back into my pocket, and beckoned everyone closer. Gods and Alkeans, people and animals, and a boy and his grandmother.

  “Everyone, grab hold. You all,” I shouted, looking at the gods, “put every ounce of power you’ve got into this quilt. What unites your
world and mine are the stories we share. My grandmother told me that.” Nana leaned against me briefly and I swallowed and forged on. “You are your stories, and your stories are Alke. So put your stories into these threads. Every tale, every lullaby, every joke. And hold on! Please, whatever you do, don’t let go. I don’t know how long this quilt will stay in one piece, but as long as we hold it together, we can bring Alke home.”

  The giant wave crested and we picked up speed. Keelboat Annie lashed the tiller straight so we pointed directly at the widening rip between the worlds. Behind us the last of Alke unspooled, consumed by the world-eating storm.

  “Now!” I shouted.

  If I’m totally honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know what the others saw—the Alkeans and Nana. I don’t even think the gods themselves were paying attention to anything other than infusing the quilt with the power of their own individual stories.

  But, thanks to Nyame’s adinkra on my wrist, I saw.

  And what a story it was.

  I saw words and moving images of all different colors. I heard faint echoes of songs, vibrant and powerful and achingly beautiful. Everyone holding that tapestry contributed. Yes, the gods, and me as Anansesem—we did our part, but so did the ordinary folk. Their tales went into the stitches, filling the squares with life. Children’s laughter infused the quilt with the joy of a new generation, and elders shared their tears of sadness over the departed. Underneath it all pulsed the heartbeat of a nation, and it was a familiar rhythm.

  We were united.

  The keelboat plunged through the hole in the sky just as the sea disappeared out from under us.

  All sound was silenced.

  Darkness swept over us.

  Only the flickering glow of the enchanted quilt cast any light, bathing the underside of everyone’s face in soft gold. I had one last second to meet everyone’s eyes, to send my hopes and prayers and love to my friends and family before even that small source of comfort was extinguished.

  And then…

  …there…

  …was…

  …nothing.