The Alchemists of Kush

by Minister Faust

  “But how many will stick around?” asked Sister Seshat.

  JC didn’t answer. He seemed to understand he hadn’t thought things that far through.

  “So maybe, Brother Moon,” she said, “you need to re-scope this. Maybe you’re better off just working with these two, just doing a mini-programme or something. But honestly, brother, the Golden Fortress? For kids who haven’t even gone to university? Or completed high school? Hell, some of em are practically on the street—I don’t mean you two young brothers. Aren’t you expecting a bit much?

  “I’m not talking about making them Shemsu-Hru,” said Mr. Ani.

  “But you just said the Golden Fortress,” protested Kojo. He pushed his glasses back up his nose by pushing on the diamonds in their arms.

  “Yeah,” said Mr. Ani, “but I’m talking about opening the gates. A whole new approach. If we’re keeping all the gold locked up and letting the Leadites wander in the Savage Lands, you know what that makes us?”

  Seshat said, “So what are you suggesting?”

  “We open the Fortress. Like I did with Raphael and Jamal, here. They’ve been learning the scrolls a month now. Lemme show you. Brother Jamal.”

  JC straightened up, wiping sambusa crumbs from his mouth with as much dignity as he could scrounge.

  Mr. Ani: “‘What did the two rangers find while searching for food?’”

  JC licked his lips to be sure they were fleck-free, stood up and recited,

  “‘During forage for their daily meals, the rangers found abandoned children wandering, mad from drinking water from the Swamps of Death, and they brought them to the Master, who chased the poisons from their bodies with his herbs and fruits and healing words.’”

  Adult smiles sparkled like Christmas lights around the circle. “Raphael. ‘Who raised the Master’s compound?’”

  “‘So the Rangers and their juniors grew their walls and inside them raised their garden,”

  said Rap, also standing.

  “The Master counted bricks and time to make and cure them, and counted children as they came inside the garden for their labours, and counted days and nights and lessons yet to teach, measuring all so that it would be right and true.’”

  “THASS

  right!” said Sister Seshat, testifying, finger-snapping, then sliding palms with three others smiling as much as she was. “Just like in

  The Blues Brothers!

  We’re putting the band back together. And we’re on a mission from God. Scuze me. From gold.”

  Others scratched chins. Shook heads. Glanced at each other. Grimly.

  “This is what I’m talking about,” said Mr. Ani. “So I’m proposing some reforms.”

  “Proposing?” said Bamba. “How much more are you proposing than what you’ve already done?’”

  Caught, Mr. Ani smiled.

  “You’re right. Okay. Number one, no dress code. We all went to university. Was a lot cheaper back then—first year was what, eleven hundred dollars? Now it’s five, six grand? Might as well be a million for these kids. Most of em come from huge families—Somalis, you know. Six, eight kids isn’t uncommon. They rent, and in this market. So they’re all broke. And most of them don’t even own a single piece of continental clothing, let alone enough to last a week.”

  “What else?” asked Bamba.

  “No dues.”

  “Obviously,” said the lawyer, loosening his tie, then sliding it off his neck and scrolling it up. “What else?”

  “No selling any newspapers. Besides, everything’s online these days, and I’d rather have these kids do something more productive with their time.”

  “I never liked selling that thing anyway,” said Seshat. “Took forever, and mostly I ended up shoving the ones I couldn’t sell in my closet. Go on.”

  “They know the Resurrection Scroll. But we use it everyday, together. To go over their issues, set goals, reflect on what matters. I call it the Daily Alchemy. And they’re both pretty good at it.”

  “Really?” said Bamba. “Raphael, could I ask you to demonstrate that?”

  “Uh, yes,” said Rap. “Well . . . today is June 29. I can break down June as Justice, Unite, Nature, Evolution. So I’d say . . . for instance, that for us to get any justice, we need to unite. That it’s our nature to evolve.

  “And we need to reflect on that because, because, well, sometimes people get stuck in a rut. They stop growing. All they can do is, y’know, focus on what’s wrong, and not imagine ways to make it right. And if you’re defying your nature, you can’t be happy or complete.”

  “That’s good,” said Bamba, smiling and nodding. “And what about the twenty-ninth?”

  JC piped up. “Two is, like, revolution, and nine is peace-life-eternal, right? So a revolution is an overturning. An so many kids out there are seriously messed up. They think right’s wrong and wrong’s right.

  “So they need to revolve their perspective, which is the only way they’ll even think about looking way over on the other side of the numerals, to peace, instead of all this fighting and drugging and craziness. Which is maybe how they’ll keep their lives.

  “And if they have kids and raise them right, it all keeps revolving . . . eternally.”

  Four of the adults broke into applause.

  14.

  “I don’t like it,” said Kevin Burns.

  Burns was the tallest man in the room, six-four, and Mr. Ani’d whispered to Rap that the brother was so good-looking that when he went out for a walk, straight women and gay men crashed their cars.

  “What don’t you like?” said Seshat. She turned to the Rap and JC. “And you, young brothers, let me say how impressed I am. Gives me goose bumps just hearing you do the Alchemy like that. Been ten years since I’ve been in a room with my peoples and heard anyone recite The Book of the Golden Falcon!”

  “That’s exactly what I don’t like,” said Burns. “Hearing just anyone recite our teachings. Professor Xaasongaxango didn’t cut corners or trade on principles. He didn’t ‘make it easy’ and go around lowering the bar because he thought Black folks couldn’t step over.”

  Even across the room, Rap felt the man’s spit. He ground his teeth and tried to unfist his hands while Burns kept unloading.

  “The Professor didn’t pity us,” said Burns, “thinking the best we could do was dumb down a noble tradition so a bunch of hip-hopping street kids could start ‘rapping’ our scrolls!”

  “Kevin!” said Seshat.

  Rap stood up. So did Jamal. Mr. Ani eyed them gravitically. Kevin Burns glared at them from his perfect eyes in his perfect face.

  “Rap . . . . ”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Ani. You taught us. Hru escaped the night-raiders. He clawed his way out of the Devourer’s mouth. He even tracked and avoided the chainsmen.

  “And when the time came, he baked bricks and built the compound for the children of the Savage Lands. He knew the Destroyer was out there, waiting for him, to kill him. But that didn’t make him stop. It made him get ready.”

  “Listen, kid,” sneered the gorgeous man, “you’re no Hru. And if you think I’m the Destroyer, you are seriously deluded about how tough life can be.”

  “I’m deluded?” said Rap. He stabbed his finger into his palm. “My mother and I escaped Sudan on foot.

  We survived a refugee camp in Chad.” (Stab.) “And came all the way here and started over, from scratch.” (Stabbed again.)

  “Maybe, Mr. Beautiful Burns, you’ve seen some refugee camps? On TV? How long do you think you could last in one? They don’t give manicures there, you know.”

  Eyes popped wide around the shenu. JC whispered, “Oh, snap!”

  “Knock yourself out, Moon,” said Kevin Burns, de-chairing himself up and reaching the stairwell in three strides. “I’m not having any part of you debasing our teachings or the Professor’s legacy.”

  15.

  When they heard the door close downstairs, Rap looked at Mr. Ani. Rap’d just told off an elder, his
teacher’s old friend, made him so angry he’d stormed out.

  Seshat leaned over to Rap and gently rubbed his wrist. “He always was a prissy asshole.”

  Several adults laughed. But not Sandy the businesswoman or Kojo the deacon.

  And not Rap, either. He’d never met Burns before, but he knew the type. So did his mother. Too goddamned well.

  Mr. Ani got up, walked to the fridge and got an ice cream sandwich. Back at the circle he leaned over Rap from behind to give it to him. Rap suppressed his shudder.

  “He had it coming, young bruh,” said Mr. Ani. “You defended yourself. It was geometrical.”

  Sandy and Kojo eyed each other and got up together. Sandy said to everyone, “I’d really like to help, honestly, but I just don’t have time. I’m really sorry. If you get something going, maybe I can make a donation. Or something. Sorry.”

  People called out their goodbyes as she left. Rap thought she looked genuine, but relieved to be gone, too.

  Then Kojo with his bright round glasses with the diamond studs said, “Listen, everyone, this just . . . it just isn’t the way to go. Back in university, I mean, I was really wild back then. But things have changed for me since Jesus opened my heart—”

  “Oh, Kojo!” said Seshat. “You up and got Jesus?”

  Bamba gave her a look. “Sister, c’mon.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, brother. I’ve been in a church choir my whole life,” she said. “But Jesus doesn’t tell me to stop helping my peoples. He and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”

  “When you’re ready to hear the Good News,” said Kojo, “without mockery in your voice and violence in your mind, you’re always welcome at the Fellowship. We’re on 142nd and—”

  “Thanks, bruh,” said Mr. Ani. “We know where it is. We all went to the funeral there. Remember?”

  He looked down. “Of course.”

  Kojo tried explaining himself and then finally gave up and left.

  “If anybody else wants to leave . . . ?”

  Mr. Ani let the question hang. People eyed each other. It hurt Rap, like ice down his neck, to see Mr. Ani’s old friends leaving the room one by one, some enraged, some lost… even that asshole, Mr. Beautiful. Hoped to god nobody else would abandon him.

  16.

  “Like we were taught,” said Mr. Ani, “Know your righteousness by what you choose to do, and by what you refuse to do.” He took a breath.

  “Okay. Professor Xaaso helped make us what we are. And the Shemsu-Hru was a brilliant institution. But these kids out here . . . they’re suffering. And who gave us the right to horde our gold? And even if we did have the right, what good’s it done?

  “Where’s the Shemsu-Hru now? A bunch of old men and women scattered around the world. Dusty books and a few barely-functional websites. No public action. Just rituals based on myths. Like an old temple. A tourist attraction. A place you sit still and be quiet while somebody in charge tells you what to think and do.

  “Look at the word: shemsu means ‘followers.’ That what we should be? How many of you really wanna fit that mold? Me, I’m too profane. Rap, Jamal, what’d I teach you about profane?”

  Jamal said, “Latin?”

  “Mm-hm. What else?”

  “Pro. It means ‘in front of.’ And fanum means ‘temple.’”

  “Right. So what’d it mean back in olden times to be profane?”

  “It meant you took the temple treasures outside the temple,” said Rap.

  “Yessir. The holiest of holies. From inside lockdown to outside where all the common people could see them. Reveal the secrets. Shouldn’t we be doing that? ‘Make stand those who weep . . . . ”

  Rap and JC joined in, and then, like the sun cleaving the horizon, Sister Seshat the social worker, Brother Bamba the lawyer, Brother Chekandino the programmer, Sister Sekhem the journalist, Brother Dedan the community educator, and Sister Yeyemo’oja the graduate student, all joined in:

  “. . .reveal those who hide their faces, and lift up those who sink down. In doing so, we will all rise nearer to the Supreme.’”

  Mr. Ani continued, “‘By the sunrise . . . ”

  And the boys and Mr. Ani’s peers rang it in: “. . .I serve the cause of peace and cause of life. So may we raise the Shining Place eternally.’”

  It was lightning, and the charge in the air remained. Rap felt the hairs on his arms standing up.

  And then he saw her, and the electricity went running back up his spine:

  Sister Seshat, glancing down, dabbing her eyes, looking back around the circle, nodding and smiling.

  “Damn,” she said, sniffing. “Y’all remembered.”

  Emeralds

  and Maidens

  at the Millstone

  Four:

  Ancestor~I

  The Book of Then

  1.

  For about a month it got harder and harder to sleep because I knew that crazy mud-headed bastard was stalking me, him and his damn jackals.

  But he didn’t know I could turn into a shadow. So I started stalking him, just to figure out how he operated and get his weaknesses so I could form an attack plan. If it came to that.

  A couple of times on night-patrol I stepped on a branch, snapping it, and all those jackals stood stone-still, except for their eyes and ears probing the darkness, trying to find me.

  Idiot!

  For all I knew, those jackals might’ve been able to see through my shadow. But I was more worried about them smelling me.

  Then I’d get scared and not quiver a finger for a thousand breaths if that’s what it took for them to finally march on out. Or on the times I didn’t blow my own cover, sometimes I just got bored. So then I’d leave, dig up some grubs and bring them back to Falcon for breakfast. Or I’d check my rat-traps.

  But I knew eventually Mud-Head and I were going to have a showdown.

  I hated him. Guy wouldn’t leave me alone. Thought he owned the whole Savage Lands. My only chance was to lure him up a tree where his jackals couldn’t go. Then I’d gut him, or slit his throat like a goat’s.

  I fell asleep, dreaming my mother’d never died, but was just pretending so the Destroyer couldn’t find her. And that she was still looking for me.

  2.

  “Hey! Asshole!”

  It was him.

  So much for my plan. Night, full moon, and I was stuck out in the open, no shadow on. Lost in my head, refighting all my old battles, re-losing all those kids, re-watching Shai die and the kid get shredded by crocodiles, all the while my hands did the work of strapping Fang to a long broken branch for use as a spear. I’d done such a good a job strapping Fang on I couldn’t rip it off, so now it was useless against those jackals in close-up defense.

  And they had me surrounded. Them and all their teeth.

  So we charged each other.

  “STOP IT!”

  We both stopped totally. The jackals, too.

  There was a man standing there in silhouette.

  Moon right behind his head, like it was balanced there.

  Beside him was a tall bird, up to his hip, with a curved beak. I didn’t know what they were called, but I’d seen plenty of them. But this one was different. It was black. With gold eyes.

  I tried moving, but it was like I was made out of rock.

  My enemy’s eyes were whirling, but his mouth was grimaced like he was straining to use it and couldn’t. The jackals just stood like stumps, whining and panting through their noses.

  “You’re defiling this land, attacking each other here!” said the moon-blackened man. “You think this is what the gods want? What the gods won’t punish?”

  Great. One of those religious weirdos. “Gods this” and “punish that.” At least in my mum’s camp, I didn’t have to listen to that crap. She used to laugh at people like that. “What good are the gods?” she’d say. “Don’t be thanking them. I’m the one who got you this food.”

  But this crazy old man with his big black bird out here in
the Savage Lands at night, with his own words-of-power stilling us like stone, that was a bad combination. Probably some warlock who got chased out of his village for too much dancing, or babbling full-blast in the middle of the night, or for turning people into goats. Warlocks do that, you know. Just for laughs.

  “Follow me, you two,” he grumbled. “And your puppies, also.”

  I loved that. Chuckled, even though I couldn’t move my mouth. I could just imagine Mud-Head choking on it: Puppies?

  3.

  We marched stiffly. I still couldn’t budge my raised spear-arm, and it was throbbing. Finally the old man noticed and told me to put it down, and my arm went down on its own, and we went up a hill in the darkness.

  At the top, he ordered us to sit. All of us except the black bird did, even the dogs.

  “Behold,” he whispered, maybe to himself.

  He lifted his arms to the horizon, the moon still perched above his head.

  And the sun came up, just like that.

  Blinding gold.

  I shielded my eyes. Took me a minute to realise I could move again.

  My enemy was figuring out the same thing.

  He flinched.

  I leapt up with my spear—

  —and stopped, because we were surrounded by about forty gods-damned baboons, with gougers bigger than the jackals’.

  The old man’s gang.

  My enemy and I got the message, and we both sat back down.

  “That’s better,” said the old man. “Now be quiet and listen and hopefully you’ll learn something.”

  He waved his hand in front of the baboons, and they all started singing.

  I’ve seen crazy things. Devils boiling out of a sink-hole and dragging a man to his screaming death. Cows with eyes so beautiful they nearly made me cry. Veils of stars transforming into my mother’s face in the night sky.

  But baboons singing? That was new.

  And their song was beautiful. Like gongs and chimes and the sound of the River Eternal where I came from back in the Blackland.