Switch!

by Karen Prince

  “Wait!” Salih said, sitting bolt upright. “What did the Sobek, Kashka, say to you about the gems?”

  “He said they would save Joe’s life.”

  “No. He said they might save lives. And they did! I don’t think Kashka meant for the gems to reach Almoh. As fond as the Almohad are of gems, they would have gone looking for the source. Kashka would have had nothing to give you that resembled ammunition for your slingshots, but I think he knew you would meet the lions. Apparently the Sobek are talented that way. Amun and Darwishi had been expecting Gogo Maya at the Crystal Pool. Perhaps it is best if you leave the stones here, the ones in your pocket too. Mokele Mbembe will come looking for them.” Salih flopped down to the ground once more and went back to sleep. Typical cat, Ethan thought, patting the gems through his pocket. There may be only a few left, but it was the only leverage he had; he was not quite ready to give them up. Besides, what was the likelihood of there really being a dragon? Quite high, he admitted to himself with a worried glance at the entrance of the cave before closing his eyes and trying to get some sleep himself.

  ~~~

  “You are something else, Ethan,” Tariro beamed at him in the morning, showing barely any sign of his ordeal from the night before. “How did you chase the lions? Did you think at them?”

  Remembering the dreadful agitation of the night before, Ethan couldn’t help giving his head one last vigorous scratch. He was beginning to wonder if he had picked up lice. He was glad to see Tariro up and about though.

  “No. Jimoh and the Tokoloshe kept them at bay till Fisi came. He chased them while I was scaring away the Adze. With my awesome fear power.”

  “Fisi came?” Tariro said.

  “Yes, they are hunting now. Will be back soon,” Jimoh said. He seemed to be collecting himself a bunch of interesting treasures. So far he had a row of baby warthog teeth on a length of twine around his neck and several interesting tails hanging over his trousers from a leather chord tied around his waist. He was trading dangly things with the Tokoloshe, Ethan realised. Several of them now wore roughly carved slingshots around their necks.

  “I thought I was going to die. Literally,” Tariro said, and then he cocked his head to one side and regarded Ethan seriously. “Did you piss on me?”

  Jimoh threw back his head and laughed. “He could not miss you. He was standing on top of you to stop lion. Very scary job.”

  “That’s just crazy.” Tariro pulled the back of his T-shirt around to the front and sniffed it, wrinkling his nose, but he did’t take it off. “Who knew you had it in you... I don’t know what happened after that. I think I passed out. My foot was really sore.” He drew up his foot to inspect his wounds for the umpteenth time, and showed his leg to Ethan. “It’s just like your croc bite at crystal pools, Ethan. The lion bite has almost healed up from the magic I drank at the Sobek Lake. Will you teach me to scare things away too?” He yawned. “Funny, I slept really well. Do you think one of the Tokoloshe shot me?”

  Ethan was on the verge of telling Tariro about the blood he had fed him. He couldn’t have the boy going around thinking he was invincible because he had drunk the magic. Knowing Tariro, he was bound to take unnecessary risks, but Jimoh gave him a warning look and then said, “Yes, Tariro, Tokoloshe shoot you by mistake. Don’t feel bad. One sister for Fisi also fall asleep when she get shot. She is fine now. Gone hunting.”

  ~~~

  Ethan’s eyes widened in astonishment as he watched Fisi heft the sable off his shoulders and heave it up over the ledge as if it were no heavier than a sack of potatoes. He’d suspected the hyena youth was stronger than he’d been letting on, but a whole sable? Well, a sable calf, but still! Fisi said they would carry it up the escarpment to share with the pack. There was no danger of having to share it with Ethan – it would be like eating his own pet, after he’d watched it while it was alive, drinking at the spring in the valley.

  Not that Ethan had ever had a pet. He’d always been loath to touch any kind of an animal, much less feed one. Their food was always so gross to prepare, and generally smelled repulsive. Salih was probably the closest thing he’d ever had to a pet. Ethan was starting to enjoy giving the leopard a good scratch behind the ears every now and again. The cat seemed happy to allow Ethan to stroke him, and tended to lean up against him at every opportunity, yet as time went by, he seemed less and less tolerant of being handled by Tariro, and even Jimoh.

  “What are you smirking about?” Fisi said, bending to make a stirrup of his hands to boost Ethan up onto the ledge beside the dead antelope, and then leaping nimbly up the side of the embankment to rest beside him.

  “I was just thinking what it would be like to have a leopard as a pet.”

  Fisi’s mouth hung open. “I wouldn’t let Salih hear you say that!” His eyes darted nervously to the trail up ahead to make sure Salih was out of earshot, but he needn’t have worried. Everyone else was a long way ahead of them. Ethan could see Jimoh and three Tokoloshe inching their way up the secret pathway like spider monkeys. The rest had already disappeared around a crag in the cliff.

  Ethan had dropped behind to help Fisi with his load. It was the least he could do after the hyena had saved his life the night before. Also, he had to admit to himself, he wanted to try and slip in to Fisi’s thoughts, but only to work out what the hyena’s intentions were. Not that Fisi needed any help. Apparently he hauled game up the escarpment all the time, without any help from the sisters. It was the way.

  “I did not think you would return after you disappeared at the bottom of the waterfall,” Ethan said as they rested on the ledge, getting their breath back.

  “I went to find this pack. To see if they would help guide you through the lion territory.” Fisi dangled his legs over the precipitous drop on the other side of Ethan, sending a few loose pebbles cascading down the cliff. Not for the first time, Ethan wondered at the young man’s complete lack of any feeling of vertigo.

  “This pack? Are they not your pack?” The hyenas had changed to their human shape for the climb up the escarpment. They had all turned out to be girls and women, but at least one bore a close resemblance to Fisi.

  “No, they are the pack that we saw from the top of the waterfall, but I knew who they were. I have hunted with them before.”

  “Well, why did you come back?” Ethan said. “And for that matter, why did the sisters come to help us if it was so dangerous? They don’t even know us.”

  Fisi hesitated, fidgeting with a tail hanging from his pelt skirt, trying to find the best way to say what he wanted to say. “We could not lose you, Ethan,” he said at last. “You have the power, and I think you are not afraid. There is something you can help us with. Something we never thought we could do.”

  Oh no, thought Ethan, payback. “I am having enough trouble just staying alive and I have my work cut out for me trying to get my cousin back.”

  He shifted uneasily at Fisi’s woebegone expression. Surely he owed it to the pack to do whatever he could, even if it sounded dangerous. Could Salih have been wrong about whether they could trust Fisi? Because all the hyena had done so far was help them. “What is it you think I can do?” he said

  Fisi began in a low, soft voice. “I was with a girl, Tabita, from this pack but she was captured by the Almohad. It is our hope that you will find her and release her while you are there to fetch the boy, Joe.”

  “Why haven’t you rescued her yourself?” Ethan said. He had rather hoped Fisi would be the one helping him to rescue Joe.

  “If we go into Almoh in our human form they mess with our minds, confuse us and capture us. If we go in hyena form they can’t really manipulate our thoughts, but our natural human cunning is dulled and they can easily trick us. If they can trap us there, they withhold the magic until we are no longer able to reshape.” He looked a little embarrassed. “Even if we successfully rescue her without harming any of them they will hunt for another Kishi hostage.”

  “That’s not very nice for the other Kishi
,” Ethan said, although that was all very well for him to say, he realised. He would not leave Joe there to stop the Almohad going after someone else.

  “I need this one more than any other,” Fisi said.

  “Why don’t they just capture all of you?”

  “They don’t need all of us. They just need a few hostages to ensure that they are never attacked in the forest. They are much stronger than us but a pack of hyenas would be able to overcome one Almohad or a pair. If they are harmed in the forest, they will execute a hostage.”

  “Can’t they make some sort of a treaty? A promise, instead of keeping hostages?”

  “Not all Kishi are friendly. Some are positively sneaky. You never know which ones will turn. The Almohad see us as a group who will all behave the same way. We don’t blame them. Even we can’t guarantee cooperation amongst the packs. That’s why we keep hostages of our own.”

  “You keep hostages?”

  “Well, yes, otherwise we have no leverage ourselves, in case of an attack. But we don’t keep them for ever like the Almohad do, unless they want to stay with their host pack.” Fisi stretched his arms out in front of him, his palms upwards in a gesture of futility. “The Almohad imprison them and then just sort of forget about them.”

  Ethan moaned under his breath. “Anyway, I don’t know how you expect me to help. I don’t even know how we are going to rescue Joe.”

  “You have the power of the witch, Ethan,” Fisi said. “Tariro told me you kissed a witch. Not many have the courage to do that.” He whistled in disbelief, then picked up a stone and idly tossed it down the cliff face, following its progress all the way to the bottom. “A boy from my pack kissed a witch once and he drew power from her. He drove the whole pack crazy with it until he used it all up. They had been friends before – him and the witch – when they were children. Then the other witches took her away. They bumped into each other in the forest many years later, and she kissed him. After that he could make us do things we didn’t want to. Like you made me give Jimoh his hat.”

  “It’s not only about kissing witches, Fisi,” Ethan told him firmly. “You made me give you my slingshot.”

  “No, I was just looking very pitifully at you for the thing, like Jimoh does for the knife. You give up things too easily. You would not have given it to me if you really needed it.” Fisi hefted the slingshot in his hand as if he were going to give it back, but changed his mind. “No, this is different. This is more like bending someone to your will, so that they can’t help but do the thing.”

  “I tried to make a fish eagle drop his fish,” Ethan volunteered. “He just ignored me. So did the Adze the first few times.”

  “I know nothing about what frightens a fish eagle, but the Adze are not easily frightened. What did you threaten them with?”

  “Well, bats, to start with. The Adze looked a bit like insects. Bats eat insects.”

  Fisi guffawed. “Adze are not afraid of bats, or lions for that matter. I will tell you what my pack brother used to do. Look, you can try it out on me if you want. Take your knife and cut your finger, and while you are feeling the pain, think hard about how you would like me to feel the pain.”

  Ethan opened the knife and sat poised to prick his finger. He concentrated hard on Fisi, and how much he would like Fisi’s finger to hurt. He thought he felt a warm crawling sensation ripple over his skin, but that could easily have been the rocky ledge, grown hot in the midday sun. Resisting the urge to scratch, Ethan pressed the knife into the soft pad of his finger, wincing as a thin trickle of blood oozed out.

  Fisi shook his head in exasperation. “Such a small cut! Ethan, you are much too soft. That hardly hurt at all, but you see how you can do it if you try,” he said, holding his finger up for Ethan’s inspection. Ethan watched with wonder as a tiny drop of blood beaded on Fisi’s index finger. “Will you at least think about helping?”

  Ethan nodded. Of course he would do his best. Fisi had saved their lives. Without thinking, he placed his own bleeding finger against Fisi’s as he had seen Jimoh’s friends do. Fisi’s face split in a delighted grin. Too late Ethan wondered what kind of a deal he had struck with the hyena youth. Well, he would worry about that when the time came. First he had to rescue Joe...

  As creepy as this new skill was, it seemed like a useful skill to have. He wasn’t sure if he could summon enough evil intent to use it, or the courage to injure himself badly enough to have any effect on anyone else, but he would ask Salih.

  “Why didn’t Salih tell me all this?” he wondered out loud, eyeing Fisi, suddenly wary.

  “The leopard is a wily cat. He must have a devious reason of his own,” Fisi said gleefully.

  With renewed energy, Fisi hefted the calf over his shoulders and started to work his way up the path. “Come on,” he said, “we have to catch up with the others.”

  Ethan waited a moment before following Fisi. He was starting to wonder just who he could trust on this journey.

  25

  A Cunning Plan

  The forest gave way abruptly into a strange vineyard leading into a miniature village. Akin and Manu immediately fished around amongst the broad, domed leaves of the vines with their doily-like edges, to get at the purple, sausage-shaped fruit underneath.

  “You try,” Manu said, extending one gelatinous-looking opaque fruit cautiously towards Ethan, careful not to burst it. It looked fragile, and when Manu bit into his own fruit with obvious relish, a sticky mess of purple splattered down his belly like a popped water balloon.

  Ethan took a careful bite out of the end of his, and his face almost caved in on itself, the fruit was so tart. “Man, how can the Tokoloshe possibly eat this stuff?”

  “It’s what they drink!” Fisi laughed. “It is the fruit they use to make their ceremonial wine. They have ceremonies nearly every night.”

  To Ethan, if he could ignore the fact that they were more sour than lemons, they did taste vaguely of grapes.

  The tiny thatched houses in Lala Salama village were too small for him and the boys to fit inside, Ethan realised with a groan. He had been looking forward to a good night’s sleep in a proper shelter and something other than peculiar fruit to eat. At least the food situation seemed hopeful. As they entered the village, the savoury smell of stew hit his nostrils, making Ethan’s mouth water.

  Rafiki had sent most of his men on ahead to alert Lala Salama to their coming, and although all the Kishi with the exception of Fisi and one of the sisters, Shenzie, had branched off to Maradzi, their own village, they had sent a hind-quarter of their sable on with Rafiki’s men to Lala Salama to prepare a feast. It looked to Ethan as if every table in the village had been dragged outside into the central square, where they groaned under the weight of all sorts of strange and exotic fruits. Root-like tubes with soft down on their skins were piled up next to a jumble of twisted stalks that may or may not have been dried mushrooms.

  A pruny old Tokoloshe woman stood beside a well in the center of the village square. Apart from the usual animal pelt skirt, she had on the same hedgehog headband as Rafiki’s, which held her clay-orange hair up in a style that made her head look like a sucked mango pip.

  “Water,” she grinned toothlessly, handing Tariro a furry looking gourd-like shell full of water from the well. Tariro took the water eagerly and gulped down a few swallows before spitting it out in a projectile spray, much to the hilarity of the assembled Tokoloshe.

  “It tastes bitter!” he exclaimed, trying to rub the taste off his tongue with the back of his hand.

  “Container taste funny, Tariro,” Jimoh explained. “Is only shell for baobab fruit.”

  Other Tokoloshe women came forward with calabashes and helped the travellers with water from the well, which they drank warily at first, in case there was another joke forthcoming, but also because oily magic floated on the top. Ethan guessed it must have come via the underground stream Nuru the Sobek had thought they would travel down if they’d had enough time to learn to use the magic.


  “Don’t mind Grandma,” Rafiki said to Tariro. “She likes her little joke. She says Gogo Maya is on her way and will be here before the sun goes down. But you must all eat now. She says she has seen the cousin, Joe, with that bossy tiger that the Almohad keep as a pet. She thinks the tiger may have beaten the boy up. He was so scratched. She would have given Hajiri a piece of her mind if Grandpa had let her.”

  Ethan was on his second plate of the sable stew he had vowed not to eat when Salih’s ears pricked up and he slunk off into the forest to return a short while later with Gogo Maya and two teenagers. Gogo Maya was looking much better than the last time he had seen her, if a little distracted. She barely greeted them before hurrying to the well and hauling up a hemp rope with a sack full of small round ceramic beads attached.

  She looked somewhat relieved, but she turned on the Tokoloshe with a stern look and said, “Okay! Who’s been at my beads?”

  A woman stepped forward without hesitation, her eyes fixed bashfully on her hairy foot as she twisted it in the dirt in embarrassment. She withdrew a handful of ceramic beads from a small leather bag hanging from her squirrel tail skirt, and handed them to Gogo Maya.

  Unexpectedly, Gogo Maya’s face split into a wide grin, and she patted the woman on the head, withdrawing her hand just as suddenly, as if she had been pricked by a pin, and sucking on her palm. Encouraged, a small group of Tokoloshe men and women clamoured to give up their stash, bouncing up and down to be next. They reminded Ethan of small children pushing their way to the front of the line at a tuck-shop.

  “Right,” Gogo Maya said indulgently. “How long did you leave them in the well?”

  “Long time. Long time,” the Tokoloshe assured her as they lead her towards the buffet.

  One of her companions, a dark-skinned youth who looked a couple of years older than Ethan, stepped forward without waiting for an introduction from Gogo Maya, and put a hand out to Tariro who had been the first to jump up to meet them. He looked a bit like a genie in his cotton trousers and long, sleeveless vest with intricate designs sewn down the front. A Kurdish turban covered his head, with flywhisk threads hanging down.