by Marlon James
“They are traveling?” I asked.
“Yes,” Bibi said.
“But she just said she was a sacrifice so that they would share their land,” I said.
“Not nomads,” the Leopard said.
He walked right up to me, but looked at Bibi. “And they are not traveling, they are hunting. Somebody told them a bounty of flesh would be coming through these woods. Us.”
The girl screamed. No, it was not a scream, there was no fear in it. It was a call.
“Get the horses!” the Leopard shouted at us. “And cover that girl’s mouth!”
You could hear the shuffle through the bushes even as we ran. The rustle coming from all corners and all sides moving ever closer. I slapped Fumeli’s horse and she took off. Sogolon appeared with her horse and galloped away. I followed, kneeing my horse sharp in the ribs. Bibi, riding beside me, said something or laughed, when a Zogbanu leapt out of the dark bush with a club and knocked him off. I did not stop and neither did his horse. I looked back only once to see Zogbanus, many of them, pile on top of him until the pile became a hill. He did not stop shouting until they stopped him. I caught up with Sogolon, but they caught up with us. One leapt for me and missed, his horns slicing the rump of my horse. She leapt up and nearly threw me. Two came out of the bush and started pawing at her. Arrows went into the first one’s back, and more went into the other’s chest and face. The Leopard, now on the same horse as Fumeli, shouted for us to follow him. Behind us more Zogbanus than eyes could count, growling and snarling, sometimes their horns tangling and causing a few to fall. They ran almost as fast as the horses through the thick brush. One came of the brush, his face running right into my hatchet. I wished I had a sword. Sogolon had one, riding and slashing and cutting as if clearing away wild bush. Bibi’s horse fell back without a rider to push him. The Zogbanu jumped him, all as one, the way I see lions do a young buffalo. I kneed my poor horse harder; many still chased us. Then I heard the zip-zip-zip-zip past us. Throwing daggers. The beasts had weapons. One struck Sogolon in her left shoulder. She grunted, but kept slashing with her right hand. Ahead I could see the Leopard and ahead of him a clearing and the glimmer of water. We were coming out when in the quick a Zogbanu jumped my horse right behind me and knocked me off. We rolled in the grass. He grabbed my throat and dug into my neck. They liked their meat fresh, so I knew he was not going to kill me. But he was trying to make me quick-sleep. His breath blew foul and left a white cloud. Smaller horns than the others, a young one out to prove himself. I fumbled for the daggers and plunged one into his right ribs and another into the ribs on his left again, and again, and again, until he fell on me and I could not breathe. The Leopard pulled him off me and shouted for me to run. He changed and growled. I don’t know if that scared them. But by the time I got to the lake, everyone had already boarded a wide raft, including the girl and my horse. I staggered on just as the Leopard jumped past me. Zogbanu swarmed the shore, maybe ten and five, maybe twenty, so close they looked like one wide beast of horns and thorns.
Without anyone pushing it, the raft set off. At the front, sitting as praying in her quiet little chamber, unaware of the world as it fucking burned, was Bunshi.
“Night bitch, you were testing us,” I said.
“She do no such thing,” said Sogolon.
“This was not a question!”
Sogolon said nothing, but sat there as if praying, when I knew she was not.
“We should go back for Bibi.”
“He’s dead,” Bunshi said.
“He is not. They take their victims alive so they can eat the flesh fresh.”
She stood up and turned to face me.
“Not telling you nothing you do not know. It’s care that you lack,” I said.
“He is a slave. He was born to die servin—”
“And you could be your mother’s own sister. His birth was more noble than yours.”
“You speak against the water—”
Bunshi waved her hand and Sogolon stayed quiet.
“There are bigger things than—”
“Than what? A slave? A man? A woman? Everybody on this raft thinking, At least I am better than that slave. They will take days to kill him, you know this. They will cut him up and burn each wound so he will not die from sickness. You know how man-eaters work. And yet there are bigger things.”
“Tracker.”
“He is not a slave.”
I dived into the water.
The next morning I woke up in thin brown bush with a hand on my chest. The girl from the night before, some of her clay washed off, cupping and feeling it, as if weighing iron because she had only seen brass. I pushed her off. She scrambled back to the other side of the raft, right to the feet of Sogolon, who stood like a captain, holding her spear like a staff. The sun had been up for some time, it seemed, for my skin was hot. Then I jumped.
“Where’s Bibi?”
“Do you not remember?” Sogolon said.
And as she said it, I remembered. Swimming back in water that felt like black slick, the shore moving farther and farther away, but me using rage to get there. The Zogbanu were gone, back into the bush. I had no hatchets and only one knife. The Zogbanu’s skin had felt like tree bark, but by his ribs felt soft, and as with all beasts, one could throw a spear right through. Someone grabbed my hand with old fingers. Fingers black as night.
“Bunshi,” I said.
“Your friend is dead,” she said.
“He is not dead just because you say he is dead.”
“Tracker, they were on the hunt for food and we took away their last meal. They will not eat the boy whose neck we broke.”
“I am still going.”
“Even if it means your death?”
“What is that to you?”
“You are still a man of great use. These beasts will certainly kill you, and what would be the use of two dead bodies?”
“I shall go.”
“At least do not be seen.”
“Will you cast a masking spell?”
“Am I a witch?”
I looked around and thought she was gone until wetness seeped between my toes. The lake getting pulled to the shore by the moon, I was sure of it. Then the water rose to my ankles but did not return to the lake. There was no lake water at all, just something black, cool, and wet crawling up my legs. I caught fright, but only for a blink, and let her cover me. Bunshi stretched her skin up past my calves to my knee, around and above it, covered my thighs and belly, going onto every bit of skin. Truth, I did not like this at all. She was cold, colder than the lake, and yet looking down I wanted to go to the lake just to see myself looking like her. She reached my neck and gripped it so tight that I slapped her.
“Stop trying to kill me,” I said.
She relaxed her grip, covered my lips, face, then head.
“Zogbanu see bad in the dark. But they smell and hear and feel your heat.”
I thought she was going to lead me but she was still. We did not get very far.
The fire was already raging in the sky. One of the Zogbanu grabbed Bibi’s head and pulled him up. He held half of Bibi in the air. His chest was already cut open to remove the guts, his ribs spread out like a cow killed for a feast. They threw him on the spit and the fire rose to meet him.
I snapped myself back from the dream and vomited. I stood up. It wasn’t the dream that made me want to vomit, but the raft. And what raft was this? A huge mound of bone dirt and grass that looked like a small island, not something made by man. The Leopard sat on the other side, his legs up. He looked at me and I looked at him. Neither of us nodded. Fumeli sat down beside him, but did not look at me. Only one of the supply horses survived, cutting our meals in half. The painted girl kneeled down beside the standing Sogolon. The raft island sunk a little underneath the Ogo. What is it, this thing we sail on? I wanted to ask, but knew his answer would take us into night. Sogolon, standing there as if seeing lands we could not see, was without doubt steering th
is with magic. The painted girl looked at me, wrapping herself in leather-skin.
“Are you a beast, like him?” she asked, pointing at the Leopard.
“You mean this?” I said, pointing to my eye. “This is of the dog, not of the cat. And I am not an animal, I am a man.”
“What is man, and what is woman?” the girl said.
“Bingoyi yi kase nan,” I said.
“She said that to me three times in the night, even in sleep,” she said, pointing at Sogolon.
“A girl is a hunted animal,” I said.
“I am the glorious offering of—”
“Of course you are.”
Everyone was so quiet that I could hear water gurgle under the raft. The Ogo turned around. He said, “What is man and what is woman? Well that is a simple question with a simple answer, except for when—”
“Sadogo, not now,” I said.
“Your name? What do they call you?” I asked.
“The higher ones call me Venin. They call all chosen ones Venin. He is Venin and she is Venin. The great mothers and fathers chose me from before birth to be a sacrifice to the Zogbanu. I have been in prayer from birth till now and I am still in prayer.”
“Why are they this far north?”
“I am the chosen one to sacrifice to the horned gods. This is how it was with my mother and the mother of my mother.”
“Mother and mother of moth … Then how are you here? Someone remind me, why did we take this one?” I said.
“Maybe stop asking questions where you know the answer,” the Leopard said.
“Is that it? Where would I be without the wise Leopard? What is this answer that I already know?”
“They would have eaten down to girl and boy bones by now. They were waiting for us.”
“Your slaver told them we were coming,” I said to the Leopard.
“He’s not my slaver,” he said.
“You both fool. Why send we on a mission then stop we from doing it?” Sogolon asked.
“He changed his mind,” I said.
She frowned. I was not going to say, Sogolon, what you say here is true. The Leopard nodded.
“Nothing point to no betrayal from the slaver,” she said.
“Of course. The Zogbanu was just following shifting winds. Maybe it was someone on this raft. Or off it.”
The sun was right above us and the lake had gone deeper blue. Bunshi was in the water, I saw her low down in the blue; her skin, which looked black in the night, now looked indigo. She darted like a fish, up above the water, then down, the east far off and west far off, then back, right beside the raft. She was like water creatures I have seen in rivers. A fin right down the back of her head and neck, shoulders and breasts and belly like a woman’s, but from the hip down the long swishy tail of a great fish.
“What is she doing?” I said to Sogolon, who up till now hadn’t bothered to look at me. The view ahead was nothing but the line separating sea from sky, but she fixed her eyes on it.
“You have never seen a fish?”
“She is not a fish.”
“She is speaking to Chipfalambula. Asking her for one more traveling mercy to take us to the other side. We are not here by permission, after all.”
“Not where?”
“You fool,” she said, and looked down.
“This?” I said, and kicked up dirt.
Her standing there, looking like a leader, annoyed me. I walked past her to the front of the raft and sat down. Here the mound sloped down into the river. I could see the rest of the raft under the water. It was not a raft, it was a floating island controlled by wind or magic. Two fishes, maybe as tall as I am, swam in front.
What I saw next I was sure I did not see. The island below the sea opened a slit right at the front where I sat and swallowed the first fish. Half of the second stuck out, but the opening chomped it down. Below my right heel I saw Chipfalambula’s eyes looking up at me. I jumped. Her gills opened and closed. Farther down her enormous fins, each wider than a boat, paddled slow in the lake, the half below the water a morning blue, the half above the colour of sand and dust.
“Popele asks permission of the Chipfalambula the toll taker to take us to the other side. She has not yet given an answer,” Sogolon said.
“We are long gone from land. Is that not her answer?”
Sogolon laughed. Bunshi leapt fully out of the water and dived, right in front of it, whatever it was.
“Chipfalambula does not take you into deep water to carry you to the other side. She takes you out to eat you.”
Sogolon was serious. Nobody felt the thing moving but we all felt when it stopped. Bunshi swam right up to its mouth and I thought it would swallow her. She dove under and came up by the side of her right fin. It swatted her as one would a wasp and she flew into the sky and landed far off into the water. She swam back in a blink and climbed back on top of the big fish. She walked past us to stand with Sogolon. The great fish started moving again.
“Fat cow, cantankerousness growing in her old age,” she said.
I went over to the Leopard. He still sat with Fumeli, both of them with knees drawn up to chest.
“I will have words with you,” I said.
He stood up, as did Fumeli. Both wore leather skirts, but the Leopard was not as uneasy with it as he was back at Kulikulo Inn.
“You only,” I said.
Fumeli refused to sit, until the Leopard turned around and nodded.
“Wearing sandals next?”
“What is this about?” Leopard asked.
“You have something else pressing you? Another meeting on the back of this fish?”
“What is this about?”
“I went to see an elder about Basu Fumanguru. Just to see if these stories would turn true. He told me that the Fumanguru house fell to sickness, caught from a river demon. But when I said something about cutting my hand and throwing blood, he looked up to the ceiling before I even said it. He knows. And he lied. Bisimbi is not a river demon. They have no love for rivers.”
“So that is where you went?”
“Yes, that is where I went.”
“Where is this elder now?”
“With his ancestors. He tried to kill me when I told him he was lying. Here is the thing. I do not think he knew of the child.”
“So?”
“A chief elder and not know about his own? He said the youngest boy was ten and five.”
“It’s still riddles, what you say,” the Leopard said.
“I say this. The boy was not Fumanguru’s son, no matter what Bunshi or the slaver or anyone says. I am sure the elder knew Fumanguru was going to be murdered, might have ordered it himself. But he counted eight bodies, which is what he expected to count.”
“He knows of the murder, but does not know of the child?”
“Because the child was no son of Fumanguru. Or ward, or kin or even guest. The elder tried to kill me because he saw I knew he knew about the murder. But he did not know there was another boy. Whoever is behind the killing told him nothing,” I said.
“And the boy is not Fumanguru’s son?”
“Why would he have a secret son?”
“Why does Bunshi call him a son?”
“I don’t know.”
“Forget money or goods. People trade only lies in these parts.” He said this looking straight at me.
“Or people only tell you what they think you need to know,” I said.
He looked around for a while, at everybody on the fish, for a good while at the Ogo, who went back to sleep, then back at me.
“Is that all?”
“Is that not enough?”
“If you think so.”
“Fuck the gods, cat. Something has curdled between us.”
“This is what you think.”
“This is what I know. And it has happened in the quick. But I think it’s your Fumeli. He was but a joke to you only days ago. Now you two pull closer and I am your enemy.”
“
Me pulling him closer, as you say, makes you my enemy.”
“That is not what I said.”
“It is what you meant.”
“Not that either. You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I sound like—”
“Him.”
He laughed and sat back down beside Fumeli, drawing up his legs to his chest as the boy did.
Daylight ran away from us. I watched it go. Venin was by Sogolon, watching her, sometimes watching the river, sometimes drawing her feet together when she saw she sat on skin, not ground. Everybody else slept, stared into the river, watched sky, or minded their own business.
We came to the shore in the evening. How much time was left for sun, I did not know. The Ogo woke up. Sogolon left the fish first, walking with her horse. The girl, right behind her, grabbed Sogolon’s robe tight, afraid to be even arm’s length away, maybe more because of the oncoming dark. The Ogo wobbled off, still sleepy. The Leopard said something at which Fumeli laughed. He swung his head left and right, then rubbed the boy’s cheek with his forehead. He grabbed the reins of the boy’s horse and walked right past me. Following him, Fumeli said, “Looking out for the date feeder?”
I squeezed my knuckles and let him pass. The girl Venin walked right beside Sogolon as did Bunshi, the fins in the back of her head disappearing. Only a hundred paces from us there it was, rising out of mist so heavy it rested on the ground, with trees tall as mountains and long branches splayed like broken fingers. Huddled together, sharing secrets. So dark green it was blue.
The Darklands.
I have been here before.
We stood and looked at the forest. The Darklands was something mothers told children; a bush of ghosts and monsters, both lie and truth. A day stood between us and Mitu. To go around the Darklands took three or four days and had its own dangers. The forest had something I could never describe, not to them about to go in. Woodpeckers tapped out a beat, telling birds far away that we approach. One tree pushed past the others as if to catch sun. It looked surrounded. Fewer leaves than the other trees, exposing branches spread out wide like a fan, though the trunk was thin. The Darklands was already infecting me.
“Stinkwood,” Sogolon said. “Stinkwood, yellowwood, ironwood, woodpecker, stinkwood, yellowwood, ironwood, woodpecker, stinkwood, yellowwood—”
