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She spoke much of her mother and her doings, and of her twin brother, Kinsu. The hunter felt she spoke too much of these dead people. “I am her husband,” he said to himself. “Her thoughts should be of me.” When he spoke like this to himself, he remembered his first wife, Agbanli.
Agbanli had thought only of him and how to make him happy. She had never laughed at him or known strange things one should not know. She had never gone to Ku until properly dead.
Thinking like this made the hunter think more. He wondered what it was like in Ku and if Agbanli was happy there, or if she missed him. He wondered how Fulla Fulla went there and came back again. He wondered if he would be able to go and return, and if he might see Agbanli there and comfort her.
One day the hunter told Fulla Fulla that he was going out on the savannah. But he went only to the edge of the city and waited until it was dark. Then he went back to his house and hid himself nearby. Toward morning, his wife emerged from the house. The hunter followed her. She walked out of the city to the west. She walked for a long way, till she came to a cave in a hillside. A river flowed out of the cave and down the hill. Without stopping a moment, Fulla Fulla threw herself into the river. You would think that she would drown, but instead she was carried away quickly by the water. In an instant she was gone from his sight.
The hunter stood on the bank. He tossed a stick into the water. The water carried it away, but in the way a river normally carries away a stick. It did not just disappear, like Fulla Fulla.
“Something is very strange here,” said the hunter. “But I already knew that.” And he flung himself into the river, after his wife.
It seemed as though no time at all passed before he found himself in Ku. The river, which before had been like a strong wind blowing him on, became suddenly wet. He pulled himself from the water and up onto the bank. Fulla Fulla had already left for the Market, and he was surrounded by dead people he did not know. They looked sad and tired. He asked for Agbanli, his first wife, but when they saw he had no Beads, they would not speak to him. They only glanced at him and walked away.
He found his way to the Marketplace of Death. Wonderful goods were displayed there: lengths of cloth spun from gold, ivory carved into chairs and canopies, and many other marvelous things. But everyone was crowded at one end of the Market, trying to buy the goods at one little stall. “That must be Fulla Fulla’s stall,” thought the hunter. He was curious to see what she had brought, so he went closer.
Just then, the King of Ku came into the Marketplace. The hunter knew this was the King from the magnificence of his progress. Two giants went before him, beating on copper drums. Two dwarves came after them and swept the dust from the King’s path. The King walked in splendid robes covered in strange jewels that shone with their own light. Everyone bowed respectfully to the ground and made a path for him. The hunter watched fearfully as the King of Death began trading with his wife. He hoped he would not be noticed.
The King offered a string of rubies for a package of Arabian raisins. Fulla Fulla was not satisfied. She wanted more. The King offered her a delicate chain carved from a single piece of ebony, but he demanded that she include a jar of honey and three figs. The hunter began to sweat. Fulla Fulla asked the King if he had any diamonds. She was agreeable as to the honey, but she positively had to have a large diamond for each and every fig. The King looked offended. He turned away as if to leave. The hunter could stand no more.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Fulla Fulla, what are you thinking of? He is the King of Death! Sell him all your goods, take whatever he will give, and leave!”
Fulla Fulla looked at him and screamed. “You, here? Oh, fool, you have ruined us. Truly, you have no understanding of business at all.”
The King, too, was very angry. “Fulla Fulla,” he said, “you have broken our agreement. You were forbidden to bring anyone, or even to speak of our transactions. Yet here is this living man, here where no man living should be. He calls you by name. You call him a fool. Can you deny that he is here because of you?”
The King of Ku was really most upset. He could keep Fulla Fulla here with him, and her raisins, and the honey and figs now, as well. But these would be the last.
Fulla Fulla was looking at her husband, and her heart softened as her eyes took in his beauty. She thought fondly of the many warm nights that they had spent together and how well he had provided her with meat. Also she thought how fearless he was and how much he must love her to come after her to Ku. She did not know about Agbanli. She only knew that though he was a fool, he was a brave one, and for that she loved him. But she did not let love make her weak or stupid. She thought quickly and made up her mind how to deal with the King of Death.
“Yes, King, what you say is all too true,” admitted Fulla Fulla. “He is my husband, and an excellent provider of meat. He would have been most happy to hunt for you, and to bring you fresh antelope, and smoked duiker. But now you must keep us here and punish us both, and so you will get nothing.”
“It is not for you to decide these things,” flared the King. “I am the one who decrees how justice will best be served. I will retire and consider what must be done.” And he withdrew to the far side of the Market, to think of fat pumpkins and savory stews.
Fulla Fulla knew what was in his mind. She took aside the hunter and spoke with him alone. “The King will give you two Beads,” she said. “Accept them, and thank him. But you must never use them. As he sends you back, let the Beads fall from your hands. You must never come here again in your life. I am afraid that if you tried to trade with the King of Ku, you would die long before your time.”
Then the King beckoned to them, and they came before him. “This is how it will be,” said the King. “Fulla Fulla must stay here. She gave her word, and her word was no good. But you, hunter, may come and go as she has done. Whenever you come you must be sure to bring me your own weight in meat, and any other good things I ask you to get for me.” He smiled and held out his open hand. “Take these. They will allow you to return to the living when you wish. They are proof that I am no longer angry with you.”
As the hunter took the Beads, he felt as if many things were just beginning to come clear to him. The faces of all the dead people became familiar. He thought he saw Agbanli in the crowd, though she looked different than he remembered. She looked as though she were about to speak. But the King made a sign with his hand, and then the hunter flung the Beads away, as he had been told to do.
Suddenly, he found himself at home. The sun was rising. It was morning, the same morning on which he had left.
At first he thought he had fallen asleep and dreamt his visit to Ku. He wandered through the house looking for Fulla Fulla. He wanted to tell her about his strange dream. But she was not there. And she never came back again, though he blew and blew upon the little whistle.
Author Biography
Nisi Shawl’s stories of speculative fiction, which have appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, and Gavin Grant), Asimov’s SF Magazine, and the Dark Matter anthologies, have been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon, Gaylactic Spectrum, and Parallax awards. Her reviews and essays have appeared regularly in the Seattle Times since the turn of the millennium. She is the co-editor of Strange Matings: Octavia Butler, Science Fiction and Feminism (forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press) and the co-author of Writing the Other, a guide to developing characters of varying racial, ethnic, and sexual backgrounds.
She serves on the boards of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and the Carl Brandon Society and lives in Seattle.
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