Binti: The Night Masquerade

by Nnedi Okorafor

  “This is a placement test,” Sagar said. “You will step up and face the group and tree as well as you can.”

  “What if we can’t really do it well?” the one who looked like a giant crab made of diamonds asked. It was beside me and clearly agitated as each of its legs kept stamping on the grass, sending ntu ntu bugs leaping this way and that. I grinned again. I could understand it, too! Whatever Sagar was using to communicate with all of us, it connected our group as well. I turned to the group closest to me, which was a few feet away; all I heard were grunts, humming, and a “pop pop pop.”

  Not one individual in my group could tree with difficulty, let alone with ease. When I took my turn, Sagar said, “Good. At least there’s one. And you might be the only one in the entire class today.” I was. In a class of over two hundred new students, I was the only one who could tree. This would not have been the case if all the other students on my ship hadn’t been wiped out; Heru could tree as well as I could. This added to the other reasons students mostly kept their distance from me. In that group, where we’d all stayed close to each other as we each waited to be tested, as soon as I got up there, did what I could do, and then moved aside for someone else to try, I knew I was apart again.

  After the last two students took their turns, I looked at the sky above. I’d once read about a phenomenon that happened in the colder parts of Earth when oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere collided with electrically charged particles released from the sun. The resulting swirls of green lights were beautiful and strange and though I never wanted to go to a part of Earth where there was snow and intense cold, I’d been curious what these lights would look like. As I stood away from my fellow students I realized that, with so many trying to descend into mathematical trance and call up current, the air had charged. The odd pinkish orange bright sky swirled with green-blue lights. I could even feel the charged air on my skin. I’d stood there for minutes looking up and reveling in the feeling of so much possibility and newness.

  Now, in the Osemba House, I awoke feeling like I did that day on Oomza Uni—the hairs on my hands standing on end, the feeling of energy all around me. I opened my eyes and sat straight up. Mwinyi was nearby on his mat and he stirred but didn’t awaken. Then I heard it, a rumble from far away and a low haunted howling.

  I got up and walked out the back door. Okwu was already there, floating easily before the fire. Its okuoko that were intact looked fully healed and the ones that had hanging tips were shorter, the tips having fallen off. But at least they were blue again.

  “I thought you didn’t like the fire,” I said.

  “I’ve grown used to it now.”

  Warm wind blew off the desert and from afar I could see a flash of lightning.

  “It’s still far,” Okwu said.

  “But it’s coming,” I said. “It doesn’t rain much here. But I hope it’ll arrive after sunrise.” I paused and then asked, “Will your chief agree to a truce?”

  Okwu didn’t answer for a long time and I began to wish I hadn’t asked.

  “Meduse aren’t the problem,” Okwu finally said. “Your council must succeed. And I think you need to be careful.”

  * * *

  We left the Osemba House with about an hour until dawn. It was windy and the overcast sky made it even darker, and thus easier to see the occasional flash of lightning in the distance. I shut the door behind me and when I turned, I was shocked that I actually had a reason to smile.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed as we left the Osemba House. “You’re glowing.”

  Okwu, who’d regained most of its strength, vibrated its dome. “I took from your lake,” it said. “Those snails.”

  “The clusterwinks?” I asked, gently touching its softly glowing blue dome. The bioluminescent snails lived in the lake and happened to be spawning when we arrived. Okwu had been covered with them when it had emerged from the lake yesterday.

  “Yes,” it said. “When Meduse spend a lot of time with such things, we absorb their genetic coding and make it our own.”

  “Is Binti going to start glowing too?” Mwinyi asked. I frowned at him as he snickered.

  Okwu’s dome vibrated, but it said nothing.

  Okwu’s glow came in handy. The overcast sky, blowing dust, and the Osemba-wide blackout left the streets darker than normal. With my astrolabe broken, I had nothing to help light the way. Even the glow from bioluminescent flowers on some of the homes and buildings was muted. We walked close to each other, this time completely alone and unwatched as we journeyed across Osemba back to the Root.

  With each step I took through my hometown, I wondered what I was walking toward, purposely bringing myself closer to. I’d needed to reconnect with my family after I’d left the way I did and with all that went on to happen, but realistically, it was my own insecurities that brought me running home so soon. When the Meduse anger had come forth, I’d immediately assumed something was wrong with me instead of realizing that it was simply a new change to which I had to adjust. I’d thought something was wrong with me because my family thought something was wrong with me. And now my childish actions had brought death and war. What had I started? Whatever it was, I had to finish it.

  The wind blew harder and I was glad for the layer of otjize I’d put on my skin and rolled over my okuoko. As we passed the group of Undying trees, Mwinyi and I pressed our hands to our ears and Okwu rushed up the road so fast that I lost sight of it. Mwinyi and I stopped, completely in the dark.

  “Okwu!” I called. But the noise drowned out my voice. I called it through my okuoko. Far up the road between two homes, it stopped.

  Just come, I heard it say in my mind. I cannot be near those evil trees.

  I looked at Mwinyi.

  “I have an idea,” I quickly said, trying not to look at the trees yards away that were vibrating so fast that they looked like a blur. I relaxed as I focused on the powerful gusty wind and raised my hands and typed through the zinariya as I spoke the words. The equation “w = ½ r A v3” floated in red before me, then it began to blow toward Okwu like a flag attached to an invisible pole in front of me. As I watched it, I raised my hands and called up a bright ball of current.

  The dusty road, vibrating trees, the storefront across the street, and the people looking out the window from the home beside it were all illuminated by my light. Mwinyi and I took one look at the Undying trees and quickly moved on. Even when we caught up to Okwu, I continued to use my light. And in this way, as we reached the part of Osemba near my home where the Khoush had taken out their anger when they couldn’t find Okwu and me, we saw that several of the half-destroyed homes had caved in or toppled because of the wind. This last block of homes and buildings looked like the old images of Khoushland cities and towns during the Khoush-Meduse wars decades ago. Pockmarked walls, blasted homes, crumbled buildings. Sandstone wasn’t made to survive war, and stone buildings, like the Root, could be exploded to rubble and even burned.

  Treeing helped me clear my mind of worry and the strong light gave me what felt like my last view of Osemba.

  * * *

  The Root had stopped burning.

  Now it was just a mound of char, much of the ash blown into the desert by the winds of the coming storm. Sunrise was close and all I could do was stand before the mound and stare. The only person who met us at the Root when we arrived was our camel Rakumi, who had, indeed, eaten all that remained of my brother’s garden. The Himba Council had promised to meet us here but it was nowhere in sight. Not even Dele.

  “They’re just late,” I said.

  Minutes passed and there still wasn’t a sign of them. So to add to my despair and worry, I looked at my home. The wind had blown so much away and revealed the remains—a black foundation of charred wood. The opening to the cellar must have been burned shut. Still holding the ball of current, my mind numb and empty, I stared and stared.

  Across what was left of my home, I could see Okwu inspecting the remains of the tent my father had made it—which wa
s nothing but a cracking mess formed from sand heated so hot by the explosion of Khoush weapons that it had become a yellow-black glass. Mwinyi was digging and knocking at the char at the base of the Root’s foundation.

  “What are you doing?” I called.

  “Looking,” he distractedly said, pressing both his hands to it now.

  I clucked my tongue, irritated. What if he caused the entire thing to cave in? What would he reveal? I shivered. “Mwinyi!” I called. “Please stop doing—”

  The thunder rumbled, this time louder, and it was blended with a deeper, more urgent purring. “Oh no,” I whispered. Slowly, I turned to the west, dust spraying squarely in my face. The Khoush were here. From Kokure in Khoushland? Further west? The skyline seemed to be crowded with sky whales. They flew smoothly, despite the high winds and charged air.

  I spat out dust and blinked my eyes as Okwu joined me, positioning itself in front of me. “No,” I said, stepping aside. “This is for peace. If they shoot me, then—”

  “You will be dead,” Okwu said, getting in front of me.

  “Don’t be a fool, Binti,” Mwinyi said, joining us. He too moved in front of me. “If the Himba Council isn’t here…” He bit his lip. “Maybe they set us up.”

  When the ships landed, the number of soldiers that poured out and the sheer amount of artillery that they unpacked was incredible. Within minutes, the expanse of desert was occupied with hundreds of waiting Khoush soldiers standing in formation, several of the sky whales had broken down into weaponized land shuttles, and there were long sticks with black hoops that extended into the sky whose function I didn’t know.

  “I thought they’d just bring an envoy,” I muttered as three Khoush walked up to us.

  “They have always been about show,” Okwu rumbled in Meduse.

  “Translation, please,” Mwinyi said.

  “They like to show power,” I told him in Otjihimba. “Okwu, shall I call them now?”

  “You said sunrise,” Okwu said. “They will come.”

  And sure enough, as the sun peeked over the horizon, before the three Khoush members got to us, they stopped and looked toward Osemba. I turned as well. The Meduse ships looked like they belonged in the water. Bulbous and glowing a deep purple blue, they looked like larger versions of the Meduse themselves. I briefly wondered if they were, for I’d been inside one a year ago and it had felt like being inside the body of a living thing, and stunk like one too. They silently landed, the ships’ okuoko whipped about and their bodies buffeted gently by the winds.

  Chapter 5

  Homegoing

  I stood between the leaders of both sides.

  I could barely look at Goldie, the Khoush’s king. I’d only seen his face on the news feeds and heard the Khoush who came into my father’s shop speak of him as the Honorable One. He was a tall stout man with pale skin that looked as if it never saw the sun. His garments were immaculately white, glowing and blowing in the dusty wind.

  Flanking his left and right were his military commanders whom he’d introduced as his minister of defense, a plump tan-skinned woman named Lady who had severe eyes, and Commander of General Staff Kuw, a muscle-bound man with a shiny bald head who looked only a few years my senior. I recognized Kuw’s name. He was the one Okwu said had set the Root on fire. Even from where I stood, I could feel Okwu’s hatred for especially Kuw.

  Scuttling behind them was the Khoush mayor of Kokure, Alhaji Truck Omaze. He nodded at me, flashing the same smile as when I’d stepped off the Third Fish days ago. Had he known of the plan to assassinate Okwu even back then at the launch port when things had so nearly gone wrong? If not at that point, he probably knew soon after we left for Osemba. I scowled back at him.

  The Meduse chief came with two of its military heads, first-in-command Mbu and its second-in-command, named Nke Abuo. Unlike the clear-fleshed chief, Mbu and Nke Abuo looked blue and opaque like Okwu. Okwu stood between me and the Khoush.

  I looked at both groups. Each seemed to be waiting for me to speak. I wanted to crawl into myself. I felt small. I opened my mouth and closed it. The Khoush king was looking at me like I was something useless. I glanced at the Meduse chief, whom I’d last seen while on a different planet, after I had saved everyone, after I’d been so brave. This was Earth, where I was just a Himba girl.

  “The Himba Council haven’t arrived yet,” Mwinyi said, stepping up beside me.

  “We’re not going to wait much longer,” King Goldie said, giving the Meduse chief a hard look.

  “Neither will we,” the chief rumbled in Meduse.

  “It said, ‘Neither will we,’” Okwu translated to Mwinyi.

  We were all quiet. I glanced at the mound of char; Meduse rage and indignation flooded into me so suddenly that I twitched. The Khoush king was right here, before me. I spoke. “Do you know who I am?”

  Goldie smirked and I felt angrier. “Of course I do. You’re more dignified and well-spoken than I expected.” He chuckled. “And at least I can hear you clearly. Himba women and girls are so soft-spoken.”

  “Do you know what that mound is?” I asked.

  Above, thunder rumbled and I felt even stronger. Before he responded, I let myself tree. My mind cleared and I thanked the Seven for that because of what King Goldie of the Khoush said next.

  “Your family harbored the enemy,” he said, his smirk dropping completely. “They suffered the consequences.” He motioned to where the Root had been. “If it were up to me, that would be a hole in the ground.”

  I felt my okuoko begin to writhe on my head and slap at my neck and back, but I held steady, equations circulating around my head. The golden ball in my pocket was warm and rotating. I took a deep, deep breath, imagining the air filling my toes all the way up my body as my therapist had taught me. Then, as she also taught me, I stepped back from all of them, looking every single one of them in the eye, ending with Goldie. But Goldie didn’t even notice.

  He turned to his commander of general staff and said, “The Himba are a cowardly people.”

  Kuw nodded. “They hide when they get scared. Like intelligent, innovative desert foxes.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but then closed it. I pressed my lips shut, shaking with anger as I looked around. Where was the council? I met Mwinyi’s eyes and he mouthed, “Just wait. They’ll come.” But every second was sending the plan closer to failure. Above, the storm churned in the sky, the thunder crashing now, lightning flashing. I called up a current to calm myself and let it linger around each of my hands. The feeling of the current and the way it drew from the lightning above without drawing the lightning down made me feel powerful. I stood up straighter.

  “I will not speak to the Khoush,” the Meduse chief said to Okwu. “This is not how we agreed things would go.” Then to me, it said, “Binti, where are the men of your council?”

  Goldie had completely turned his back on me to speak with his commander and minister of defense. “I only gave this a chance because of my relationship to the president of Oomza Uni. A meeting of men and instead, only this foolish Himba girl is here. We should—”

  It was the phrase “foolish Himba girl.” That’s what did it. In that phrase was condescension, a mockery of my high standing at Oomza Uni, a spitting on my family and the Himba as a whole. And where was the council? I didn’t care. My family was dead. Everyone kept dying in the ship. I saw Heru’s chest burst open again and I felt my okuoko writhing as every part of my being filled with rage. Doors deep within me flew open. All of them. All at the same time. My body waved forward, then backward, as I felt the current I was holding expand. Lightning flashed above and something in me decided to do something I’d never done: grab it.

  I fell out of the tree. Then POW! the current I’d drawn poured into me.

  I awoke. I knew something very, very important. I knew that everything depended on that moment. I wasn’t sure exactly how, but the destiny of my people was temporarily in my hands.

  And so, I screamed, “I’m t
he one who called this meeting! This was my idea!” I faced King Goldie, my eyes wide and wild. He’d whirled around, gawking at me now. Current surrounded me in an electric blue spiral that felt warm on my skin and protective. At the same time, I spoke these words through my okuoko to the Meduse chief in my roughest Meduse. My hands moved as if owned by a part of myself that had its own intent and soon I was pushing those same words into the desert. When I did this, my world remained as it was … because it was already expanded.

  The words returned to me as if whispered from afar. Not in text, but in sound. “You tell them, Binti.” It was my grandmother’s voice. With my peripheral vision, I saw Mwinyi suddenly turn and run toward the Root.

  “I’m not crazy,” I said, addressing all. I faced King Goldie as I spoke. “I’m not small. I’m not foolish.” I paused for a moment. “Do any of you even remember why you started fighting? The Meduse tried to drain the lakes? The Khoush massacred a tribe of peaceful Meduse explorers? The Khoushland chief’s daughter was kidnapped? If I ask each of you the reason, you’ll cite different stories from so long ago that the grandchildren of the grandchildren of any possible witnesses are long dead.” I turned to the chief. “What do you want with these lands? Your god is water, maybe there was water when this war began, but this part of the Earth is parched of it now. In my town, the trees had to tell us where to find water so we wouldn’t die. Khoushland is mostly desert, while seventy-one percent of the Earth is water! Why not go there? There aren’t many humans who live on the oceans. You can frolic in those waters with no trouble. But you’d rather fight and die and kill for a drop of water in a dry land.”