Abengoni

by Charles R. Saunders

  “Nobody else?” he said half-heartedly.

  No one answered. And Athir didn’t like the way some of the Matile were looking at him.

  He got along with the Matile well enough, and even liked them to certain degree. They seemed more tolerant than many other people he had known, and the authorities didn’t care very much about places like the Ukili – as far as Athir knew, they didn’t even demand bribes to look the other way while criminal activities were occurring. Athir did, however, give a cut of his profits to the owners of the talla-beits he plied. And, of course, he was careful not to let any of them know how wealth he was really amassing.

  Athir sighed – but only inwardly.

  I should have let him win a little more, he thought ruefully of his last mark. But there was no point in regrets now. The time had come to make a graceful exit, then come back to this particular talla-beit later ... much later.

  Before he could open his mouth to give his farewell speech, Athir felt a slight tug at his belt. He looked down, and saw that his pouch was gone. He looked toward the talla-beit’s entrance. And he caught a glimpse of white-clad legs scissoring their way out the door.

  2

  “Mugguth’s balls!” Athir cursed, unable to believe he could have been so inattentive, yet still be alive.

  Not forgetting to snatch up his dice, the Ship’s Rat sprinted out the talla-beit’s doorway. Behind him, several of the patrons exchanged sly smirks and knowing glances. Others merely shrugged. Within moments, all of them had returned to their cups of talla.

  Outside, the sun was close to setting and shadows spanned the narrow street in front of the talla-beit. Looking both ways, Athir quickly spotted the fleeing thief. As Athir charged after him, Matile men and women dodged from his path, then shook their heads at the foreigner’s audacity – or, more likely, ignorance. They knew who the Fidi was chasing, and they would never have done the same themselves, unless they no longer cared about living.

  The thief cut around a corner. Athir slowed and pulled out the slim, keen-edged dagger that was the only weapon he needed. Then he peered around the corner. He saw a long alley with an end that was swallowed in shadows. Of the cut-purse, there was no sign.

  Cautiously, Athir eased into the alley. He knew it was foolhardy to pursue a potential foe into unfamiliar territory. But the pouch contained his hard-earned winnings for the day. Of course, the coins it contained were not all that he had. He had other loot stashed elsewhere. Still, to have had the pouch taken from him so easily galled Athir’s pride as a master of the thieves’ trade.

  He took another few steps forward, peering intently into the shadows, still seeing nothing. Then his instincts warned him – too late. He heard a soft rustle of clothing behind him. And the point of something sharp prodded into his back.

  In front of him, the Matile thief glided noiselessly from a space between two buildings in the alley – a space Athir had not been able to detect in the semi-darkness. The thief came closer. Athir’s purse dangled from one of the Matile’s hand. In the other was a spiked, mace-like weapon unlike any Athir had seen before.

  Behind him, the sharp point prodded Athir again, deeply enough to cut through his clothing and draw blood from his skin. Athir got the message. He opened his hand and let his dagger drop to the ground. The sound it made as it landed was the only thing he could hear in the alley, the entrance of which seemed to have suddenly receded a vast distance from the nearby street.

  As his eyes became accustomed to the half-light of the alley, Athir recognized the thief. It was the young man whose money he had won in the talla-beit. Beneath the braids that hung over his brow, the Matile’s eyes gleamed with a feral light. Gone was the resentment Athir had seen in them in the talla-beit. He realized now that had been only an act; what was in this youth’s eyes now was something to be dreaded far more than mere anger over losing a few coins.

  Athir was also beginning to suspect what this young man truly was, and he was becoming very afraid. When the thief spoke, he confirmed Athir’s suspicions – and his fear, which was beginning to crawl in his stomach.

  “You, Fidi,” the Matile said. “Why you try to be tsotsi? Only tsotsi can be tsotsi. Heard?”

  Other figures emerged from the shadows in the alley. They appeared as if by magic from spaces Athir would never have noticed even if the alley had been bathed in bright sunlight.

  Say something – anything! Athir told himself.

  “Uh, hey, I’m sorry, friend,” Athir managed. “I didn’t know this was your territory. Why don’t you just keep the pouch? I’ll take my business elsewhere, and I won’t make this mistake again. Does that sound all right to you?”

  The tsotsi tossed the pouch toward Athir. Reflexively, he reached out and caught it. Then he gave the tsotsi a quizzical look, even as the others gathered behind him. They were all young, but they were as hard-looking a lot as Athir had ever encountered.

  “Don’ want your gold, Fidi,” the tsotsi said. “You be what we want.”

  “Me?” Athir asked, more afraid than ever.

  Rather than reply, the tsotsi bent down and picked up Athir’s dagger. He held it in one hand and compared it to the fearsome weapon in his other hand.

  “This your teeth?” the tsotsi demanded, looking from the dagger to Athir and back again.

  “I – I guess so,” Athir said, trying to fathom the tsotsi’s meaning.

  The tsotsi laughed.

  “That ain’t hardly no teeth,” he said.

  Then he held up his tirss.

  “This be teeth,” he said proudly. “Heard?”

  “Uh, yeah, heard,” Athir said, reckoning that was what the tsotsi wanted him to say.

  He waited a moment, then asked a question to which he didn’t really want to know the answer.

  “You going to kill me, tsotsi?”

  “Don’ know yet,” the tsotsi said. “Jass Mofo decide. He the one want you. We gon’ take you to him now.”

  The tsotsi stuck Athir’s dagger in the belt that held the loop into which he then placed his tirss. Then he made a gesture.

  Immediately, the sharp point was removed from Athir’s back. At the same time, something was thrown over his head, cutting off his vision. Then the point poked him again, and he understood its message: get moving.

  He began to walk.

  I’m still alive, he thought, as he had on numerous similar occasions. But this time, he wondered if the Ship’s Rat’s luck had finally run out.

  3

  Blindfolded and stumbling, Athir allowed the tsotsis to poke and prod him through the squalid back streets of Khambawe. Although he could see nothing, the fetid smells that reached Athir’s nose told him all he needed to know. His travels had taught him that offal smells the same everywhere, and these streets had to be choked with the stuff. He guessed that this was the infamous Maim. He had known he would have occasion to enter the tsotsi district sooner or later.

  But not like this ...

  His captors had remained silent, and discouraged him from trying to communicate with them. He attempted to remain optimistic. They haven’t killed me yet, he reminded himself. And they hadn’t played any cruel tricks on him, like walking him into walls or letting him trip over obstacles in the street.

  Once, he heard a crunching of bones, followed by high-pitched, inhuman laughter. The tsotsis broke their silence at that sound. They made Athir stand still while they cursed and tossed objects at the source of the sound until the laughter stopped and rapidly receding footsteps signalled the departure of whoever – or whatever – it was. Athir thought he could detect the clicking of a beast’s claws. And he was glad he couldn’t see what it was that loped away.

  Finally, Athir was hustled up a short flight of steps, then pushed through an entrance into a building. Immediately, the odors changed. Fragrant smoke and aromatic oils replaced the reek of decaying garbage. He could also hear music – a slow, hypnotic, rhythmic drumming.

  The hands that gripped Athir’s
arms jerked him to an abrupt halt. He heard the shuffle of footsteps around him and a cacophony of hushed voices. The drumming suddenly stopped. He heard footsteps moving away from him, and others shuffling, as though to get out of the way of whoever was walking. For a long time, no one said anything. The unseen hands held him easily, but firmly. Finally, someone pulled the makeshift blindfold off his head.

  Athir blinked. The light in the building was dim, but he could still make out the piles of loot scattered throughout the room, as well as elegantly made furniture pushed haphazardly against walls covered with intricately woven tapestries. Tsotsis swarmed around him, looking at him with idle curiosity rather than open hostility. Some of them were chewing khat, and were looking at him and through him at the same time. The tsotsis who were not transported by khat seemed to be fascinated by his sand-colored hair and his pale complexion, which seemed resistant to the browning rays of the Abengoni sun.

  Athir was struck by their youthfulness, and the lithe, catlike grace of their bodies. But it was their eyes that made the deepest impression on him – those of the women as well as the men, and even the children. Athir Rin had gazed into the eyes of thieves, outlaws, murderers and other rogues in more than a score of far-flung countries in Cym Dinath and beyond. But never before had he seen such an absence of warmth, or any other kind of positive sentiment. The tsotsis’ eyes reminded him of the cinders left by a burnt-out fire. They were the eyes of people who expected nothing – and gave less in return.

  Athir forced himself to return the gazes of the tsotsis. Long-honed intuition told him these youths who were near, into, or just barely out of adolescence wouldn’t hesitate to gut him like a fish if he showed any sign of the fear that continued to gnaw at his stomach and tickle his spine.

  Then the crowd of tsotsis in front of him parted, and a lone, regal figure approached.

  Their leader, Athir presumed.

  This new tsotsi stood taller than average, which meant that he towered over Athir. Beads of gold and silver decorated the braids that hung from a strip of hair on an otherwise-shaved scalp. Thick chains of gold and silver hung across his bare, sepia-colored chest. A wispy mustache and chin-beard decorated his grim, dark face. His clothing and ornaments were those of a wealthy man, but he wore it as though its opulence meant nothing. He had the type of frame that could make rags look like royal robes.

  Unlike the other tsotsis, this one’s eyes glimmered with a spark of curiosity – and something else. He looked at Athir for a long time before speaking. Beads of sweat popped out across Athir’s browline as he began to realize who this dangerous-looking tsotsi probably was. And Athir knew then that he was in even deeper trouble than he’d thought.

  “What you be named, Fidi-man?” the tsotsi finally asked.

  “I’m Athir Rin.”

  “I be Jass Mofo,” the tsotsi said. “This be the Ashaki set. Baddest set in the Maim. Heard?”

  “Heard,” Athir replied.

  He didn’t say anything more. But his heart sank to his stomach as his surmise of the tsotsi’s identity was confirmed. Amid the scant amount of information he had acquired about the tsotsis was the fact that Jass Mofo was considered the most ruthless and dangerous tsotsi in the entire Maim.

  “What you doin’ in Ukili?” Jass Mofo demanded. “What you doin’ tryin’ to be tsotsi?”

  “Like I told the other guy, I’m new here,” Athir said. “I didn’t know the Ukili was part of your territory.”

  Annoyance flickered in Mofo’s eyes. He wasn’t accustomed to any indication of ignorance about his domain. Even the Emperor knew where Jass Mofo ruled. What was wrong with this outlander?

  Jass Mofo gestured at the plunder scattered casually throughout the smoky chamber – a treasure hoard greater than the wealth of more than a few members of the Matile nobility.

  “See that?” Mofo asked.

  Athir nodded.

  “That be mine,” Mofo said. “All of it.”

  He gestured again, this time indicating the tsotsis who surrounded both of them, all of them looking with great deference at their leader, and disdain at the scrawny outlander.

  “See they? They mine,” he said.

  Then he pointed to Athir.

  “And you,” Mofo said. “You mine. Heard?”

  Athir knew better than to attempt to argue the point.

  “Heard,” he said.

  He had nothing to add to that statement. He knew his life was hanging on the balance of the whims of this young lord of thieves. He tried not to wince as Jass Mofo studied him ... assessed him, as if he were a freshly stolen prize. It was a gaze Athir himself had often bestowed on his victims.

  “No other set got a tsotsi like you, Fidi-man,” Mofo said at last. “And this game you run – the one with the bones – no other set got that, either. I do believe you be good for this set.”

  “Heard,” Athir said without prompting. “I’d be honored to be part of your enterprise. You can count on me, Jass Mofo.”

  Jass Mofo laughed.

  “Not that easy to be in Ashaki set, Fidi-man. You got to step over. Heard?”

  Athir gritted his teeth. He had a good idea what “stepping over” would mean.

  “Heard,” he said, hoping his voice reflected resignation rather than the fear that was devouring him inside.

  4

  Athir was sore. His body was bruised. He was bleeding. But he was alive. And he was now a tsotsi of the Ashaki set.

  Although he normally preferred to work alone, Athir had occasionally found himself pressed into affiliation with criminal gangs, just as, from time to time, he found it expedient to offer his services to the crew of a departing ship. Unlike ships’ crews, though, gangs required initiations. And wherever Athir had encountered gangs, their initiations were always the same: the prospective member was required to run through a brutal gauntlet, with the gang members striking blows with fist, feet and, sometimes, weapons.

  The tsotsis’ “stepping over” had been a gauntlet like any other. The only difference Athir could discern was in the incredible quickness of the tsotsis. Athir himself was far from slow, and in previous gauntlets he had run, he had been able to minimize the injuries he suffered by dodging and rolling with the torrents of blows that had rained down on him.

  But he had not escaped many of the blows the tsotsis sent his way. Their hands moved like dark blurs, darting toward him with the swiftness of a viper’s tongue. Only moments after he began to “step over,” Athir knew he would need all the skills he had gleaned from a lifetime in back alleys simply to survive this initiation into the tsotsi ranks.

  When the ordeal ended, no one congratulated Athir. He believed he did detect a brief glint of approval in the eyes of Jass Mofo. Mofo had not participated in the gauntlet. Like all rulers, he left matters like that to his underlings.

  A young tsotsi woman had led him to the room in which he would recover from the effects of his “stepping over.” Athir’s aches were not so debilitating that he could not appreciate the subtle sway of her slender hips as she walked in front of him, or the lithe play of muscles beneath her dark-brown, mostly bare, skin. However, he wasn’t yet aware of the connections and protocols of the tsotsi set; he didn’t know who among them might be willing to kill him if he so much as touched even one of his guide’s beaded braids.

  Before she left him at the entrance of his room, the woman pressed a wad of khat into his hand.

  “Chew this,” she advised. “It make you feel better.”

  Then she departed without a backward glance.

  Athir followed her counsel. The khat gave him a sharp jolt when he started chewing it; then it began to ease him out of his pain.

  Khat wasn’t nearly as potent as other narcotics he had sampled, such as Dream Lotus or Firedust. But it was sufficient. Just as the Ashaki tsotsis were sufficient ... for now. He didn’t plan on remaining with them a moment longer than he had to ....

  He was thinking of ways to escape when Jass Mofo came into the
room.

  When he saw Mofo, Athir started to rise. Mofo motioned him to stay where he was.

  The tsotsi chief had shed most of his aristocratic trappings. He was clad only in black leather senafil studded with silver, along with several chains of silver and gold around his neck. And he still looked like a Jass.

  “Fidi tsotsi,” he said, smiling as though he liked the way those words sounded.

  Athir remained silent.

  “How you feelin’?” Mofo asked.

  “Fine. Yourself?”

  Mofo ignored that question. Instead, he asked one of his own that caused fear to crawl once again in Athir’s stomach. The semi-stupor to which the khat had taken him vanished abruptly, and the pain from his injuries greeted him like an old friend.

  “You thinkin’ about runnin’, Fidi tsotsi?”

  “No,” Athir said quickly. “Not at all, Jass Mofo. I would never do that. I’m proud to be a part of your fine organization.”

  Mofo snorted in disbelief.

  “Best not be thinkin’ about runnin’,” he said. “Once you Ashaki, you always Ashaki. Till you die.”

  “Heard.”

  “Good.”

  Then Mofo knelt next to Athir. The Ship’s Rat felt as though he were sitting next to a hungry leopard.

  “Show me how you make the bones fall the way you want them to fall, Fidi tsotsi,” Mofo said.

  “Sure,” Athir agreed, fishing his dice out of their hiding place in a fold of his garments.

  “Here’s how you throw a seven.”

  He flicked the dice against the room’s bare stone wall. They bounced once, twice, then lay still on the floor. One face showed three markings, the other four.