by Marlon James
“So every death comes to the victim who deserves it. You truly are a prefect.”
“What a wife you will make someone one day.”
I did not even bother to glare.
“So do as your superiors do and call the matter shut. Hear this. Since this is an open space where any may enter, and since I am not connected to any crime, be a good member of the Kongori chieftain army and be gone.”
“Now hold—”
“Is our business not done, prefect? There is a child you do not believe lives, a writ you think means nothing, about a king whom you serve and believe blameless, and not connected to a series of events that did not happen, or even if they did happen, meant nothing. All surrounding a man whose entire family was murdered because of some snake he took to his home thinking it a pet, only to have it bite him. Is that about all of it, prefect? It surprises me you’re still here. Make distance between us. Go ahead.”
“I will not be dismissed by you.”
“Oh fuck the gods! Then stay. I will leave.”
“You forget who has authority in this room,” he said, drawing his sword.
“You have authority over your own kind. Where are they, your black-and-blue zombi?”
He held his sword out straight and came at me. The zup sound shot between us and we jumped back as the spear lodged itself in the floor. Black with blue marks.
“One of yours,” I said.
“Shut your mouth!”
A quick light shone from above us, and only when the arrow lodged into a tower of books did we see the light was flame. A shadow in the window had shot a flaming arrow down at us. The fire rose from the floor and flicked a tail. It twisted left, then right, then left like a lizard seeing too many things to eat. The flame jumped on a stack, and fire burst from each book, one then another, then another, up and up. Three more arrows came through the windows. The fire halted me, tricked me into stopping to wonder how come an entire wall was raging in flames. A hand grabbed mine and pulled me out of the spell.
“Tracker! This way.”
Smoke burned my eyes and made me cough. I couldn’t remember if the Sangoma protected me from fire. Mossi pulled me along, cursing that I wasn’t moving faster. We dashed through an arch of flames right before they collapsed, and burning paper hit my heel. He jumped over a stack of books, went through a wall of smoke, and vanished. I looked back, almost slowed down to think of the fire’s speed, and jumped through the smoke. And landed almost on top of him.
“Stay to the ground. Less smoke. And they will see less of us when we come out.”
“They?”
“You think this is one man?”
This section of the hall had only smoke, but the fire was running out of food and hungrier than ever. It jumped from stack to stack, and ate through papyrus and leather. A tower fell and shot flames through the smoke wall at us. We scrambled. I could not remember where to find the door. He grabbed my robe and pulled me again. We ran right, between two walls of books, then left, then right, and then what felt like north but I did not know. Mossi’s hand still gripped my robe. The heat was close enough that the hair on my skin burned. We reached the door. Mossi swung it open and jumped back before four arrows hit the floor.
“How far can you throw those?”
I grabbed the ax. “Far enough.”
“Good. Judging from how these arrows lean, they are on the roof to the right.”
He ran back into the smoke and came out with two books burning. He nodded to window, then pointed at the door. Don’t give them a chance to grab new arrows. He threw the books out the window and four arrows cut through the wind, two hitting the window. I ran, dropped, and rolled out the door, then jumped up, ax in hand, and threw it. As the ax spun towards the archers it curved, slicing one man’s throat and lodging in the other’s temple. I jumped into the dark and out of the path of two arrows. More arrows kept coming, some with flame, some with poison, like rainfall until it stopped.
The hall burned in every wall, every chamber, and a crowd started to gather in the street. No more archers waited on the roof. I slipped away from the crowd and ran around to the back of the building. Up on the roof Mossi wiped his sword on the skirt of a dead man and sheathed it. How he passed me I don’t know. Also this: On the roof lay four bodies, not two.
“I know what you will say. Don’t sa—”
“These men are prefects.”
He walked to the ledge and watched the blaze. “Two of them are dead,” he said.
“Are they not all dead?”
“Yes, but two were dead before we killed them. The fat one is Biza, the tall one Thwoko. Both have been missing for over ten and three moons, but nobody knew what happened to them. They—”
I heard them in the dark and knew what was happening. The dead men’s mouths tearing open. The rumbling and rattling from toes to head as if death came in fits. Even in the dark the ripples rose from their thighs, to belly, to chest and then flew out the mouth in a cloud inky as night, a cloud we could barely see, which swirled and then vanished in the air. Too many shadows to see, but I knew on the spin of cloud and dust formed wings, for we both heard the flutter. We both stood there, looking at each other, neither wanting to say anything first, anything that spoke of what we just saw.
“They will crumble to dust if you touch them,” I said.
“Then best not to touch them,” a man said, and I jumped. Mossi smiled.
“Mazambezi, was it the flames that drew you or you missed the smell of me?”
“Indeed, one lives with shit, one gets used to the perfume of it.”
Two more prefects climbed up on the roof, neither saying anything to Mossi, but both looking over at the fire and covering their mouths at the smoke that started drifting our way.
“What do we do when we watch our history burn?” Mazambezi said.
“Your words speak of such loss, Mazambezi. We shall fill a new hall,” Mossi said.
“How did it start, do you know?”
“Don’t you know? Your men—”
“Some men dressed as chieftain army,” Mossi said, interrupting me. “I saw them myself, fire arrows into the great hall. Maybe they are usurpers. Hurting us where it would hurt the most.”
“This too will need a record. And where shall we store them?” Mazambezi laughed.
“You must take a look at these men, Mazambezi, their whole bodies are racked by dark craft,” Mossi said, and looked at the bodies again. It flashed, catching the light of the fire, and I yelled.
“Mossi!”
He ducked just as Mazambezi’s sword sliced through the air right above his head. The duck made him stumble. One of the men drew a small bow and aimed at me. I dropped beside the body that had caught my ax in the skull. I tore it out as an arrow flew in and replaced it. I jumped up and flung my ax, which spun and blurred and struck him in the middle of his chest. Mazambezi and a prefect both fought Mossi with swords. Mazambezi charged at him, sword out straight like a spear. Mossi dodged and kicked him in the chest with his knees. Mazambezi elbowed him in the side; Mossi fell and spun out of the other prefect’s strike, which sparked lights on the ground. The prefect raised his sword again but Mossi swung from the ground and chopped off his foot. The prefect fell, screaming. Mossi jumped up and drove his sword down into the prefect’s chest. He paused, panting, and Mazambezi sliced right across his back. I jumped between them and swung my ax. His blade met my blade and the force knocked him clear across the floor. He rose, shocked, confused, Mossi jumped in between us.
“Enough with this madness, Mazambezi, you called yourself incorruptible.”
“You call yourself handsome, and yet I can’t see what the women see in you.”
Mossi held his sword up, as did Mazambezi, and circled as if to clash again. I jumped in between them.
“Tracker! He will—”
Mazambezi swung his sword a hair’s length from my face, and I caught the blade. It shocked the prefect. He pulled his sword to cut my finger
s but drew no blood. Mazambezi stood there, stunned. Two swords went straight through his back and came out through his belly. Mossi yanked his swords back, and the prefect fell.
“I would ask how, but do I—”
“A Sangoma. An enchantment. He would have killed me with a wooden sword,” I said.
Mossi nodded, not accepting the answer, but not wanting to push for another one.
“More of them will come,” I said.
“Mazambezi was not like the others. He spoke.”
“He only possesses some. He pays the others.”
Mossi turned back to watch the crowd, all lit up by firelight. He cursed and ran past me. I followed him down the rear staircase, jumping three steps like he did. He dashed into the crowd. I ran after him but the crowd surged forward and pulled back like waves. Someone cried that Kongor is lost, for how can we have a future without our past? The crowd confused me, made me deaf and blind until I remembered that I could now smell the library master. Mossi slapped him in the dark, slapped him until I grabbed his hand. The bookkeeper cowered on the ground.
“Mossi.”
“This whoreson will not talk.”
“Mossi.”
“They murder my books, they murder my books,” the library master said.
“Let me speak for you. A man came to you and said, Send word if any man comes by asking for records of Fumanguru. I come in, I say where are the records for Fumanguru, and you sent word by pigeon.”
He nodded yes.
“Who?” Mossi shouted.
“One of yours,” I said to him.
“Stick your falsehoods up your asshole, Tracker.”
“The only thing lying to you are your own eyes.”
“Why they murder my books? Why they murder my books?” the library master wailed.
“We will see what he knows and does not know.”
I went right up to Mossi.
“Listen to me. He is no different from Ekoiye. Told only what he could be trusted to know, which is nothing. Told by just a messenger, not the man sending the message. Maybe chieftain army, maybe not. Somebody is both one step ahead of us, waiting for us to come, and one step behind us, waiting for us to move so that he can follow. Somewhere in the course of the last hour we were being watched, and that person heard enough.”
“Tracker.”
“Listen to me.”
“Tracker.”
“What?”
“The keeper.”
I cursed. The keeper was gone.
“That old man could not have gone far,” Mossi said, just as some women screamed and a man shouted, No, old man, no.
“He didn’t plan to,” I said.
Right then the library roof caved in and killed some of the flames, but the whole square was hot and bright.
“Distance between us and this place, we need now,” I said.
Mossi nodded. We turned down an empty alley that had puddles even though the rains were long gone, and where wild dogs tore through whatever people threw out. A dog looking almost like a hyena made me shudder. Sogolon was nowhere eyes could see and neither was the girl. All I knew of Sogolon’s smell was lemongrass and fish, which could have been any of hundreds of women. I’ve never smelled her skin on the girl’s and the Ogo did not have much of a smell. I never thought to make mark of the lord of the house, or the buffalo.
“We should head east,” I said.
“This is south.”
“You lead, then.”
He turned right at the nearest alley, also deserted.
“We Kongori must lack entertainment if a little fire can pull us away.”
“There was nothing little about that fire,” I said.
He turned to me. “And they will think it the work of a foreigner first.”
“Except it was members of your own force.”
He tapped my chest. “You need to cut that thought loose.”
“And you need to look at what is loose all around you.”
“Those were not my men.”
“Those men wore your uniform.”
“But they were not my men.”
“You recognized two.”
“Did you not hear me?”
“Oh, I hear you.”
“Don’t give me that look.”
“You can’t see my look.”
“I know you have it.”
“What look, third prefect of the Kongori chieftain army?”
“That one. The one saying he’s a fool, or he’s slow, or he denies what he sees.”
“Look, we can leave or we can have words, but we cannot do both.”
“Since your ways of seeing are so superior to mine, look behind you and say if he is friend or foe.”
He walked slow as if with his own business. We stopped. He stopped, perhaps two hundred paces behind us, not in the alley but where it crossed the lane going north. This could not be the first time I am noticing that it was dark, I thought. Mossi was beside me, breathing fast.
His hair short and red. Earplugs glimmered in both ears. The same man I saw back in the pool in the Darklands. This man Bunshi called the Aesi. In a black cape that flapped open like wings, waking up the wind and whipping up the dust. Mossi drew his sword; I did not draw my knives. The dust around him would not settle, rising and falling and swirling and shifting into lizard-like beasts as high as the walls, then swirling again into dust, then into four figures as huge as the Ogo, then falling to the ground as dust, then rising again and flapping like wings. The prefect grabbed my shoulder.
“Tracker!”
Mossi ran off and I followed. He ran to the end of the alley and dashed right. Truth, he ran faster than the Leopard. I turned back once and saw the Aesi still standing there, wind and dust unsettled around him. We had run into a street that had some people. They all walked in the same direction and slow as if coming from the fire. He would notice us running faster than everyone else. Mossi, as if he heard me, slowed. But they—women, some children, mostly men—were moving too slow, taking for granted that bed would be as they left it. We were passing them, looking back at times, but the Aesi was not following us. A woman in a white gown pulled her son along, the son looking back and trying to pull away from her. The child looked up and stared at me. I thought his mother would pull him away, but she had stopped too. She stared at me like the boy did, like the blank stare of a dead man. Mossi spun around and saw it too. Every man, woman, and child in the street was looking at us. But they stood still as if made of wood. No limb moved, not even a finger. Only their necks moved, to turn and look at us. We kept walking slow, they kept standing still, and their eyes kept following us. “Tracker,” Mossi said, but so under his breath that I barely heard it. Their eyes kept following us. An old man who was walking the other way turned so much, with his feet planted on the ground, that I thought his backbone would snap. Mossi still gripped his sword.
“He’s possessing them,” I said.
“Why is he not possessing us?”
“I don’t—”
The mother dropped her child’s hand and charged at me, screaming. I dodged out of her way and swung my foot for her to trip. Her son leapt onto my back, biting into it until Mossi pulled him off. The child hissed and the hiss woke the people. They all charged after us. We ran, I elbowed an old man in the face and knocked him over, and Mossi swatted another with the flat side of his sword.
“Don’t kill them,” I said.
“I know.”
I heard a hum. A man hit me in the back with a rock. Mossi punched him away. I kicked two down, leapt onto the shoulder of another, and jumped over them. Mossi slapped away two children and their mothers who came charging after. Two young boys jumped me and we fell flat in the mud. Mossi grabbed one by the collar, pulled him off, and threw him against the wall. God forgive me, or punish me, I said before I punched the other and knocked him out. And still more came. Some of the men had swords, spears, and daggers, but none used them. They all tried to grab us and push us down in th
e dirt. We had run only halfway. But from the end of the street came a rumble, and the screams of women and men flying into the air, left, right, then left, then right, then again. Many ran away. Too many ran straight to the buffalo, who charged through them, knocking them away with head and horns. Behind him, each on a horse, Sogolon and the girl. The buffalo plowed down a path for us and snorted when he saw me.
“He will possess all who pass by this alley,” Sogolon said as she rode up to us.
“I know.”
“Who are these people?” Mossi said, but jumped back when the buffalo grunted at him.
“No time to explain, we should leave. They will not stay down, Mossi.”
He looked behind him. Some of the people were waking up. Two swung around and stared at us.
“I don’t need saving from them.”
“No, but with that sword, they will soon need saving from you,” Sogolon said, and pointed him to the girl’s horse. Sogolon jumped off her own. Many of the men and women had risen, and the children were already up.
“Sogolon, we leave,” I said, mounting her horse and grabbing the reins.
The people were gathering strong, huddling, becoming one shadow in the dark. She stooped and started drawing runes in the dirt. Fuck the gods, we have no time for this, I thought. Instead I looked at Mossi, holding on to the girl, who said nothing, looking grim, looking calm, playing at both. The crowd as one ran towards us. Sogolon drew another rune in the dirt, not even looking up. The crowd was coming in close, maybe eighty paces. She stood up and looked at us, the crowd now close enough that we could see their eyes lost and faces without feeling even though they shouted. She stomped in the dirt; a gust rose and blew them down whom it did not blow away. It knocked men to the ground and women in robes up into the sky and barreled children away. The storm swept the alley all the way down to the end.
Sogolon got back on her horse and we galloped through the quarter, riding as if many were chasing us, though no one did. She gripped the reins, and I gripped her waist. I knew where we were when we came to the border road. The house was northeast, but we did not ride to the house. Instead we stayed on the border road between Nyembe and Gallunkobe/Matyube until it took us to the flooded river. Sogolon did not stop.
