Black Leopard, Red Wolf

by Marlon James

  “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.”

  “Yes. Yes. 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.”

  “There is a door here, Tracker.”

  “We have already spoken on that. Open it.”

  “I cannot, and never could. Only those of the Sangoma have the words that open doors. You have used it twice, do not lie.”

  “The first one was just a door that witches hide. Nothing like the door to Kongor. Who is the boy?”

  “You said you know. You don’t know. But you brand a guess on you. Open this door and I will tell you what you read in that library. Open the door.”

  I stepped away from her and looked back at them all watching me. I clasped my hands below my mouth as if catching water to drink, and whispered the word taught to me by the Sangoma. I blew, half thinking the uncaring night would leave me standing here a fool, half thinking that right in front of me fire would form in the shape of a door. A spark formed as high above me as a tree, a spark as if striking two swords together. From the top the flame spread in two directions, curving like a circle until both ends struck the road. Then the flame died 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.”

  “Will he shut up soon?” Mossi said to the girl. She laughed. It enraged me. More than I expected anything from him to do. Furious and having no way to show it, I just started walking. Ten and five paces in, I saw the road was not dirt but stone. The dark turned brighter, like silver from moonlight, and the air felt cold and thin. The trees taller and farther apart than Mitu, and far off and above clouds, black mountains. The others followed. I could not see Mossi’s face but knew how shocked he would be.

  “Even a sangomin, when he’s not whining like an unfed bitch, can do mighty feats. Or just this,” she said as she mounted her horse and rode past me.

  The buffalo passed me, then the girl. Mossi was staring at me, but other than his eyes, I could not read his face. I ran and caught up with Sogolon. She waited for me to climb on behind her. The air got colder the farther we went, so much that I tried to spread the curtain to cover more of me.

  “Do not sleep tonight,” she whispered.

  “But sleep is already claiming me.”

  “The Aesi will jump in your dream looking for you.”

  “Shall I never wake up?”

  “You will wake, but he will see morning through you.”

  “I do not recognize this air,” I said.

  “You in Dolingo, four days’ ride from the citadel,” she said, and we continued up the hill.

  “The last door took me right into the city.”

  “The door is not here to obey you.”

  “I know who your boy is,” I whispered.

  “You think you know. Who is he then?”

  SIXTEEN

  Let the girl switch with you or here is where we stop riding,” Sogolon said.

  “Here I thought you would welcome a young man so near your bottom.”

  “This the kind of bottom you would be near now? What you selling us now, Wolf Eye?”

  She made me so quickly furious that I jumped off.

  “You. The witch rather you ride with her,” I said to the girl, who hopped down.

  “Want to ride or be ridden?” Mossi said to me.

  “All but sky shits on me tonight.”

  He gave me his hand and pulled me up. I tried to brace my hands against the horse’s hind instead of holding him, by my hands kept slipping. Mossi reached behind with his hand, grabbed my right, and placed it on his side. Then reached back with his other hand and did the same with my left.

  “Wearing myrrh part of being a prefect?”

  “Wearing myrrh is part of everything, Tracker.”

  “Fancy prefect. Coin must be good in Kongor.”

  “Look, you gods, a man wearing a curtain complains of me being fancy.”

  The road smelled of wetlands. The horses sometimes stepped as if they were stuck. I grew tired, and felt all the cuts and scrapes from Kongor, one on my forearm feeling the most deep. I opened my eyes to feel two of his fingers on my forehead, pushing me off his shoulder. All I could think was fuck the gods if I had drooled on him.

  “He must not sleep, is what she said. Why must you not sleep?” Mossi asked.

  “The old witch and her old witch stories. She fears the Aesi will jump in my dreams.”

  “Is this one more thing I should know?”

  “Only if you believe it. She thinks he will visit me in dreams, and take my mind from me.”

  “You do not believe?”

  “I feel if the Aesi wants to take hold of your mind, part of you must have wanted to give it.”

  “A high regard you all have for each other,” he said.

  “Oh we are to each other like the snake is to the hawk. But look what love for your prefects has got you.”

  He said nothing after that. I had the feeling that I hurt him, which bothered me. Everything my father said bothered me, but none so much that I would sit back and think of it. My grandfather, I mean.

  We stopped as soon as the ground felt more dry. A clearing surrounded by thin savannah trees. Sogolon took a long twig and scratched runes in a circle around us, then ordered me and the prefect to find wood for the fire. Off in the thick of the trees, I saw her talking to Sadogo and pointing into the sky. Mossi broke two branches off a tree. He turned around, saw me, and walked over till he was not far from my face.

  “The old woman, is she your mother?”

  “Fuck the gods, prefect. Is it not clear I despise her?”

  “That is why I asked.”

  I shoved my branches on top of his and walked away. She was still scratching runes when I stood behind her. Are these just for you, I thought, but did not say. Sadogo grabbed a tree trunk, ripped it out of the earth, and laid it on its side for the girl to sit. Mossi tried to pet the buffalo, but he snorted at him and the prefect jumped back.

  “Sogolon. We will have words, witch. Which lie do you wish to start with first? That the boy was Fumanguru’s blood? Or that the Omoluzu were after Fumanguru?” I said.

  She threw away the stick, stooped in the circle, and blew a soft whisper.

  “We will have words, Sogolon.”

  “That day is no closer, Tracker.”

  “That day?”

  “The day when you are master over me.”

  “Sogolon, you—”

  A gust hit me in the chest, spun me in the air, and hurled me across the clearing before I saw her even blow. The Ogo ran over and pulled me up. He tried to dust me off, but each brush felt like a punch. I told him I was clean now and sat down by the fire Mossi had started. The girl looked at me awhile before she opened her mouth.

  “Annoy her again and she done destroy you,” she said.

  “And how will she find her boy?”

  “She is Sogolon, master of the ten and nine doors. You seen it.”

  “And yet she needs me to pass through them.”

  “She don’t need you, this I know.”

  “Then why am I still here? What do you know? Only days ago you were happy to be Zogbanu meat.”

  The night stayed cold. Sadogo’s tree trunk was small enough for me to rest my head on. The fire blazed in the sky and warmed the ground, yet it looked as if it was getting weaker until it went black, though it still crackled and popped.

  The slap scorched my cheek and shocked my eyes open. I gra
bbed my ax to swing when I saw the girl over me.

  “No sleep till you come to Dolingo citadel. That is what she say.”

  I boxed the buffalo’s ears until he whipped me with his tail. I asked the Ogo every question I could think of that would make him talk till morning, but he tried to swat me away. Then he yawned and fell asleep. And then the girl climbed on top of him and rested on his chest. There would be nothing of her if he rolled over, but she looked like she had done this before. Sogolon curled like an infant in her circle of runes and snored.

  “Walk with me. I hear a river,” Mossi said.

  “What if I have no wish—”

  “Must you be the crabby husband in everything? Come with me or keep your place, either way I go.”

  I caught up to him in a patch of thin trees with branches that scratched like thorns. He was still in front of me, stepping over dead trunks and chopping away branches and bush.

  “And you can sense the boy?” he said, as if we were talking before.

  “In a way. It has been said I have a nose.”

  “By whom?” he asked.

  “Whom indeed. If I get the smell of a man, or woman, or child, my nose follows him wherever he goes, no matter how far, until he dies.”

  “Even to other lands?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  “Are there no fantastic beasts in your land?”

  “So you call yourself a beast?”

  “And every question you reply with a question.”

  “By my life ’tis as if you’ve always known me.” Mossi grinned. He tripped and I grabbed his arm before he fell. He nodded his thanks and continued. “Where is he now?”

  “South. In Dolingo perhaps.”

  “We are already in Dolingo.”

  “Maybe the citadel. I don’t know. Sometimes his smell is so strong that I think he is where you are, then days later he would vanish as if his scent was something I woke up from. It never goes from strong to weak or weak to strong, just all here sometimes for a few days, then all gone.”

  “Fantastic beast indeed.”

  “I am a man.”

  “I can see that, Tracker.”

  He stopped and pressed in my chest. “Viper,” he said.

  “Do people say you have an ear?”

  “That was not very funny.”

  The night hid my smile and I was glad for it. I walked around where he pointed. I heard no river, nor did I smell any river smells.

  “Who is this Omoluzu that was after Fumanguru?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you?”

  “Half a day ago I was in my chambers drinking tea with beer in it. Now I am in Dolingo. Ten days’ ride that took less than one night. I have seen one man possess many and something like dust rise out of dead men.”

  “You Kongori do not believe in magic and spirits.”

  “I am not Kongori, but you speak true, I do not believe. Some people believe the goddess speaks to leaves so they grow, and whisper in a spell to coax a flower to open wide. Others believe that if they just feed it sun and water, both will make them grow. There are only two things, Tracker: that which men of wisdom can explain, and that which they will explain. Of course you do not agree.”

  “Just like all you men of learning. Everything in the world cooks down to two. Either-or, if-then, yes-no, night-day, good-bad. You all believe in twos so much I wonder if any of you can count to three.”

  “Harsh. But you are no believer either.”

  “Maybe I have no love for sides.”

  “Maybe you have no love for commitment.”

  “Do we still speak of Omoluzu?”

  He laughed too much, I thought. At nearly everything. We came out of the bush. He stretched his hand out to hold me from stepping farther. A cliff, though the drop was not far. The cloud gathered thick in this part of the sky. It made me think of gods of sky walking the nine worlds, causing thunder, but I could not remember when last I heard thunder from the sky.

  “There is your river,” he said.

  We watched the water below us, still and deep, though you could hear it lash against rocks farther up.

  “Omoluzu are roof walkers. Summoned by witches or anyone in a pact with witches. But to summon them is not enough; you must throw the blood of woman or man against the ceiling. Wet or dry. It awakens them, they hunger for it, and they will kill and drink from whoever has it. Many witches have died because they think Omoluzu seeks only the person whose blood is shed. But Omoluzu hunger is monstrous—it is the smell of blood that lures them, not the taste. And once summoned they run along the ceiling the way we run along road, and kill everything not called Omoluzu. I have fought them.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Another place your wise people would say does not exist. Once they’ve tasted your blood they will never stop following you until you are in the next world. Or the reverse. And you can never live under a roof, or shed, or even pass under a bridge again. They are black like night and thick like tar and when they appear on your ceiling it sounds like thunder and sea. One thing about them. They do not need blood, if your witchcraft is strong, but you would have to be a witch among witches, the greatest necromancer, or at least one of them. One more thing. They never touch the floor, even when they jump; the ceiling pulls them back as surely as this ground pulls us.”

  “And these Omoluzu killed elder Fumanguru and his wife and all his sons? Even his servants?” he asked.

  “Who else could cleave a woman in two with a single chop?”

  “Come, Tracker, we seem to both be men of learning rather than faith. So rest, if you don’t believe her.”

  “We both saw this Aesi, and what he can do.”

  “Ill wind mixed with dust.”

  I yawned.

  “Belief or no belief, Tracker, you are losing this fight with night.”

  Mossi pulled at his two belts and the scabbard dropped to the ground. Then he stooped, unstrapped both sandals, unwrapped the blue sashes on his tunic, then grabbed his tunic at the neck, pulled the whole thing right off his head, and threw it away as if he would never wear them again. He stood before me, his chest two barrels, his belly waves of muscle, and below that, a patch that drew shadow before anyone could see lower, and ran back from the edge to give himself a start. Before I could say what a mad idea this was, he ran past me and jumped off, yelling all the way till the splash cut him off.

  “Fuck all your gods, this is cold! Tracker! Why are you still up there?”

  “Because the moon has not made me mad.”

  “The moon, precious sister, thinks you are the mad one. A sky with open arms yet you will not fly. A river, her legs spread open, yet you will not dive.”

  I could see him splashing and diving in the silver water. Sometimes he was like shadow, but when he floated he was as light as the moon. Two moons when he flipped himself up in a dive.

  “Tracker. Forsake me not in this river. Regard it, I am attacked by river demons. I shall die of sickness right here. Or will it be a water witch who drowns me so that I can become her husband. Tracker, I shall not stop shouting your name until you do. Tracker, do you not wish to stay awake? Tracker! Tracker!”

  Now I wanted to jump, just to land on his head. But sleep came at me like a mistress.

  “Tracker. Do not even think of jumping into this river wearing that stupid curtain. You act as if clothes are second nature to the Ku, when we all know.”

  You have been trying to get me out my robes for two days now, I thought but did not say. My splash was so loud I thought it was somebody else’s until I sunk under the water. The cold hit so hard and sharp that I sucked in water and broke the surface coughing. The prefect laughed until he coughed as well.

  “At least you can swim. One never knows with men from the North.”


  “You think we can’t swim.”

  “I think you are so obsessed with water spirits you never go in the river.”

  He flipped over, dived under, and his feet splashed me.

  He was still swimming, and diving, and splashing, and laughing, and shouting at me to get back in the water when I sat on the banks. My clothes were back on the cliff and I needed to get them, but not because it was cold. He stepped out of the water, shaking off the glisten of his wet skin, and sat down beside me.

  “Ten years I lived in that place. Kongor, I mean,” he said.

  I looked out at the river.

  “Ten years I lived in that city, ten years among its people. ’Tis a funny thing, Tracker, to live in the same place for ten years with people who are by far the most open yet the least friendly people I have yet to meet. My neighbor would not smile when I said, Good morning and be safe from ruin, brother. But he will say, My mother is dead, how I hated her in life and will now hate her in death. And he might leave fruits at my door if he has too much, but will never knock on my door for me to greet him and say my thanks, or worse, invite him in. ’Tis a coarse love.”

  “Or maybe he is no friend of prefects.”

  I could tell without looking that he was frowning.

  “Where do you go with this?” I asked.

  “I feel you were about to ask how I felt to have killed men dear to me. And they were, in a way, dear. The truth is I feel remorse at not feeling remorse. I say to myself, How do I feel grief for people who kept their love at arm’s length from me always? This bores you. It bores me. Do you still wish for sleep?”

  “More talk like this and I will.”

  He nodded.

  “We could talk through the night, or I could point out mighty hunters and wild beasts in the stars. You could also say, Fuck the witch and her old beliefs, I am a man of science and mathematics.”

  “Mockery is cheap.”

  “Fear is cheap. Courage costs.”

  “So I am now the coward for not sleeping. What say you?”

  “A strange night this is. Are we near the noon of the dead?”

  “It has come and passed, I think.”

  “Oh.”