“It could be worse.”
“How?”
“I could be you.” Naiteru glanced at the wound. “AKilwa lies not too far from here. Maybe a maiden or two could speed my healing?”
“If it is a wet nurse you seek, who am I to prevent it?”
They moved deeper into the thicket, the tangled copse growing ever the more impenetrable. The dark wood felt even darker in the cool penumbra of the mountain.
III.
The swirling drifts of snow erased any trace of Dinga’s trail, the sound of his footfalls swallowed by the encroaching gloom. He pulled his fur hood low upon his head. Layered clothes shielded the worst of it. The terrain held few surprises for him — his wanderings had led him through more than one mountain pass and even the biting wind was more familiar than foreign. A white, long-dead world with the feel of being older than life. Doubt gnawed at his insides like icicles ground into him. He had reached what passed for a plateau among the ice peaks and searched for any hint of where to go next. It had been a few days since his last real meal. He soothed his parched throat with mouthfuls of snow, praying for Onyame to take him before he lost all feeling throughout his body. Still, his limbs kept moving, determined to survive. He spied a shallow shaft in the distance and staggered toward it, relieved to find anything close to shelter.
The subterranean passage was like a gaping wound in the earth. The jagged aperture hid the black recesses of the shaft. The sounds of the storm flaying the mountainside reverberated through the shaft. The peculiar howl of the wind, heightened by the darkness, unsettled him within the horrifying enclosure. He lost all sense of direction, only knowing that he felt as if he climbed down the throat of a giant creature in a tight, downward-angled shimmy.
A faint amber light glowed in the distance. As Dinga got closer, the chute yawned like a ravenous mouth, spitting him into a high roofed cavern. Luminous markings along the walls possessed the air of the sacred about them. For the first time, it occurred to him that the whole mountain might be holy. The walls bent at strange angles, cold but not freezing. Stones jutted from them, fangs, covering branching tunnels. A menacing maze, but Dinga knew that the trick of mazes was to always stay true. He kept to a path that always wound left. The winding path took him deeper into the belly of the mountain.
After several interminable hours, the staid air gave way to moving air currents. His ears perked to attention at the sound and smell of trickling, fetid water. His animal instinct bristled inside him. Waste run-off, like bait — it was meant to draw him in.
The violent gale assaulting the mountain took on the sounds of disquieting music. The ground appeared as if it had been undisturbed for ages. He could make out an odd geometry of shapes from the unearthly glow that emanated from whatever grew on the cave walls. Cones and pyramids piled upon one another like a city with an architecture no man designed.
Upon closer inspection, he noticed a familiar pattern inscribed upon some of the stones. The designs were similar to those that had been tattooed onto him. He couldn’t hazard a guess as to what it meant, though he knew it to be a mystery for another time. More troubling were the bones of fallen warriors scattered all about the cavern. A large, oblong shape drew his attention. As he approached, he slowly made out the features of the object before him: a man encased in ice. At first, he feared that the nude corpse was a mirage, little more than the heat-induced fever of when he crossed the great desert alone. Mummified, the man’s grimace reminded him of one privy to an ancient joke, a nomad much like him. Scars and open wounds laced the man’s body. Only the face disturbed him with its calcified eyes of a madman.
Only then did Dinga realize that he wasn’t alone.
He stilled his breathing and waited for his heartbeat to slow. No sound, not the slightest shuffle betrayed any movement — yet he knew lurking horrors surrounded him. First, a strange call answered from deep within the cavern. Then came the sound of nails scraping stone.
Dinga raised his sword.
The pair’s progress proved slower than Dinga would have imagined. Two stout warriors such as he and Naiteru should have traversed the short few miles within the hour. Yet, the sky pulled on its night cloak, held up for it by a forest of ancient trees. They tarried as if robbed of the will to move. The throb along his ribs alerted Dinga to his own wounds. The steep cliffs of Oldoinyo Oibor, the white mountain, rose from the jungle, looming over the brooding primeval forest. The entire valley lay in its shadow. The silence of the journey troubled him. No birds, no tell-tale rustling among the lush undergrowth.
Naiteru’s wound kept bleeding, to Dinga’s dismay, though he gave no sign of it save the occasional grunt. He hadn’t lied to assure Naiteru earlier: The wound was slight and should’ve closed on its own. He thought of Naiteru as a brother, one he didn’t always have occasion to like but a brother nonetheless. Not like that Spartan dog Gerard who vexed him on occasion by way of misadventure.
Though they were an easy-going people, Dinga also knew the Masai to be more fierce than the Berbers. It was said that to them, “No one else matters except the Masai and their cows.” That wasn’t entirely true. Naiteru’s father had taken him in for a time soon after Dinga left his home village.
“You will have many adventures and great days ahead of you,” Naiteru’s father often opined. Dinga never said anything to that. He only knew that he had to wander the four winds, the rite of Onyame, before settling among his people. “‘Happiness is to lie on one’s back surrounded by many sons.’ I could always use another son.”
Often, he thought that Naiteru’s father said such things to stir up Naiteru, instill in him the threat of a rival for his father’s affections. Instead, it stirred an unrealized yearning for an older brother. They competed, sure, but not as two vying for their father’s approval.
They staggered to Kilwa Kivinje’s gates well into the evening. Dinga expected a collection of dark-skinned men and their scattered huts — huts of mud and wattle, thatched with brush. Instead, he found a palisaded city, with sweeping stone walls that enclosed it and hugged the terrain. The walls were built from the very stone of the mountainside. Impressive hill terracing served to grow grains. Magnificent houses dotted the landscape. Near the center of the village, cone-like blast furnaces with bellows worked their iron smelting. The tall men milled about in their ease postures, standing on one leg, and stared with grim curiosity at the two men staggering toward them. The women were exotic beauties: tall, buxom, strongly built, with burgundy cloths fastened at the waist by jewels draped around their wide hips, and with shaved heads and the middle teeth of their lower jaws pulled out. Rumor had it, so Naiteru said before his wounds silenced him, the women did everything that needed to be done in the village since work was beneath the men’s dignity.
Dinga collapsed with Naiteru. A cadaverous man with a nose too narrow to trust ran to them and waved the others back. Dinga reached for his sword, but Naiteru’s hand stayed the blade.
“Bring food and drink for our weary guests!” the man shouted.
“We …,” Naiteru said.
“Hush now. We’ll talk when you are refreshed and strengthened.”
Naiteru gorged on wild game, refusing any fruits or vegetables. He requested fresh cow blood mixed with cow milk, a staple of his warrior’s diet. Dinga ate from all that the maidens brought and his goblet overflowed with wine. He observed the tender ministrations of the maiden that flitted about Naiteru, noting the lingering caresses to her otherwise efficient work. He dreamt of returning to Ifriquia’s tender embrace and felt a dull ache whenever he thought of her, like a peace he didn’t deserve. However, she was in Wagadugu and that country was in the distant north.
“And what would your name be?” Dinga asked.
“Esiankiki.” The young woman averted her gaze. She carried herself like a woman with strength, Dinga’s eager eyes drank her in, reminding him of a thirst in need of slaking.
“Your spirits seem lifted. I am Kaina, laibon to the Chagga people.
” The medicine man’s voice was the low, deep rumble of a threatening storm. The laibon reminded Dinga too much of the dwellers of Kawkaw, the land of magicians.
“I am Dinga of the clan Cisse, a Nokian.” His pulse quickened with pride. He knew how his people were thought of: a barbaric, war-like tribe, intelligent but uncivilized; an ancient and proud people who kept their old ways and secrets to themselves.
“Naiteru,” he muttered between gulps of blood-milk.
“I know you, Naiteru. We were saddened to hear of the death of your father.” Dinga cut Naiteru a terrible glance. “We fear more such deaths.”
Dinga listened carefully to the story the laibon spun — tales of a river sickness infecting the land, killing cattle and weakening the people of the village. What devil’s secrets laibons didn’t keep to themselves, they spread only in dark whispers. He hinted of necromantic magic and strange creatures called from the Night, searching for any reaction on Dinga’s face. He found only boredom.
“Does anyone know the mysteries the jungle conceals? This is none of my business. I will take my leave and you can keep your concerns for yourself.”
“Stay. Let us show you the hospitality of the Chagga,” the laibon said.
Dinga, despite his youth, cast a wary eye at the laibon. He spoke with a general amiability that bothered Dinga. However, the sport of drink was new to him and the effects far more debilitating that he remembered. His concerns about overstaying his welcome curdled into something approaching apprehension. “No, the horizon calls me. Show me to my chamber so that I may be fresh tomorrow.”
“That’s fine. Let none say that the Chagga do not know how to treat their guests. Esiankiki, more wine.”
The light of warning reflected in her eyes as she refilled his goblet. At least that was the cast of her countenance once he reflected upon it. Far too late.
IV.
Before seeing the obsidian outlines, he reckoned the number of beasts at five. His innate hunter’s skill guided him, sensing a conscious malignity all about him. He moved with a reckless speed, barely avoiding the charge of the first creature. Dinga had never encountered an animal like them before. They resembled a kind of bat, with their large, membranous wings lined with a serrated edge. The folds of the unsturdy frames of their wings, like bamboo shoots, hid short, muscular arms with long, taloned hands. Star-shaped heads sat atop their squat bodies. Each had a slit in the center of the top of their heads, the center opening guarded by thin, raking teeth. Bowl-like eyes the color of old wine scanned for movement in the steep night. Dexterous tentacles, like undulating fingers, radiated from their bellies.
Dinga remained motionless, his skin twitching, eager for combat. He held his dagger in one hand and his sword in the other. The arms of the nearest creature thwarted his initial efforts at a clean stab. In fact, the brute’s skin proved nearly impervious to the casual slicing of his blade. Great, hammer-like blows sent Dinga sprawling to the cold ground. He recovered quickly and leapt at the beast, but was quickly ensnared by it. Its hide reeked of deep earth. Dinga plunged his dagger into the inviting ball of an eye. The creature let go immediately but not before Dinga tore into the opposite eye.
Another creature reached for Dinga. He grabbed the outstretched arm and threw himself forward along the icy pathway. In one fluid movement, Dinga wrapped his powerful legs around the creature’s body, entangling its wings as the two of them tobogganed down the trail. The beast retaliated by raking its nails across his shoulder. The entwined pair slid toward the wall of jutting ice spires that mirrored a collection of spears, until Dinga turned at the last instant so that the beast withstood the brunt of the impact.
Dinga ran his hands along the nape of his neck. A familiar slickness greeted him as he muttered imprecations to himself. The scent of fresh blood stirred the remaining fiends’ passions. In such close quarters, the creatures did more damage flailing at each other than at him. Two of the beasts tore into each other until they both fell dead. The last creature pummeled Dinga with a flurry of fierce punches, and sent him facefirst into a wall. He clutched at its neck as the opening in its head frantically tried to bite at him. His dagger pierced the soft flesh of its underbelly. Dark-green fluid answered for blood and sluiced in a streak against the rock. Dinga sealed his lips shut, fearing that its taste might match the gamy smell. The blood pooled in a viscous curd. Dinga’s neck and shoulder felt numb. He piled the corpses in the center of the chamber, settled into them and warmed himself in their cooling flesh.
Dinga opened his heavy eyelids, still groggy from what felt like an evening spent in a wineskin. Or five wineskins. Images slowly coalesced from some sort of sinister dream. Bits of the scene he recognized. When he attempted to move his arms, he realized that each was bound to a wooden rack. The flames from the iron works danced before him, fighting the chill of the strange mountain’s shadow. Naiteru lay still, barely conscious on the gentle lap of Esiankiki. She met Dinga’s stare then turned away quickly.
“What madness is this?” Dinga pulled against the ropes, testing them.
“The madness is yours, thinking you could come into our village to watch your handiwork in action,” Kaina said. “We still live and to our last breath we defy you.”
“Naiteru?”
“His arrival was an omen. He is known to us, a friend of this village. Yet, he, too, has succumbed to your blight upon us.”
“Then your madness threatens to consume you all. I am a warrior. Servant of Onyame, the god above all others.”
“Eng-ai trembles before no other god. Even the red god of drought and the black god of the rains serve Eng-ai. And Eng-ai sent you to us for a reason.”
“And that reason is what?” Dinga asked.
“You were the one sent to destroy us.”
The villagers stared on, dull-eyed and weary. Dinga could believe that they were beset by some malady. The laibon – a desperate figure responsible for their physical and spiritual well-being had latched on to any belief that might relieve his charges. His supposed powers of divination prophecy and healing availed him not.
“Either give me a chance to prove myself or else let me die on my feet. A warrior’s death.”
“We shall. You shall undergo the Trial by Ordeal.”
“What is that?” Though Dinga suspected torture, which he was prepared for.
Kaina nodded toward Esiankiki. Gently, she slid Naiteru’s head from her lap to the ground then brought Kaina a bowl. She held out her hands and he slit her palm with a small dagger. He collected some of the blood in the bowl then lofted the bowl skyward as if offering it to an air spirit. Turning to each of the four directions, he similarly prayed before attending to Dinga. Kaina shook a powder into the liquid and held the bowl to Dinga’s mouth.
“What is it?” Dinga asked.
“Fresh cow blood mixed with the blood of a virgin. And ground tenga root.”
“The poison?”
“So it is. One that burns in the veins. Should you be innocent, your life will be spared. Otherwise, Eng-ai will consume you in his fires of judgment.”
“I serve ‘He Who Roars So Loud that the Nations are Struck with Terror.’ If I have done this cowardly deed, may Onyame strike me down now.” Dinga spat. He had little faith in the dark arts and found the whole matter distasteful. Magic was too removed, made combat impersonal. It was too easy, almost civilized, to inflict harm from a distance. However, to physically engage your enemy — to watch and feel his life blood ebb from his body — that kept the value of life, the true measure of worship in Onyame’s name, firmly in one’s mind.
Kaina forced the mixture into Dinga’s mouth. Dinga threw his head back, taking in much of the foul liquor. The liquid burned his throat and gullet — waves of liquid flame coursing through his blood. The blood-fire bulged his veins to near bursting. Dinga pulled on the ropes and snapped the supporting beams. He let loose his death scream, to alert the guardians of the afterworld that a warrior would soon join their ranks, and fell to his
knees. His skin bristled like seared flesh in the cool morning. He crawled toward Naiteru. Kaina, Esiankiki, and the on-looking villagers moved out of his way. Dinga pulled himself toward Naiteru’s head. Sweat poured down Naiteru’s face, his eyes bloodshot and tired — the picture of a man trapped in a fevered nightmare.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill them where they stand,” Dinga whispered hoarsely.
“I’ll give you two. Onyame saw fit to spare you, but you look so weak a foal could topple you. And ...” Naiteru glanced toward Esiankiki. “If she was a virgin, she certainly wasn’t when she left my chambers.”
“Heh.”
“Dinga. Son of Cisse. Eng-ai has judged you and found you worthy,” the laibon said in a congratulatory tone. Dinga felt for his dagger, hoping to rid the world of one of its medicine men, only to realize that it had been stripped from him.
“If this is the hospitality of the Chagga, Onyame take you all.”
“Truly, you have my apologies,” Kaina said. “We are a desperate people. I had to be sure that you were not one of the Brotherhood of the Higher Ones.”
Naiteru moaned. A troubling rattle settled in his throat.
“What troubles him?” Dinga asked.
“He is not long for this world. It is the work of the Brotherhood. They spin their magics. Their ways poison our land, our livestock, and our people.”
“Why haven’t you done anything about them? Performed another of your rituals?” Dinga scoffed.
“The legends say that the Brotherhood of the Higher Ones abides in an iron hut high atop Oldoinyo Oibor. Guarded by their servant creatures. None have returned to tell the tale of the hut’s master.”
“Who built the hut?” Dinga asked.
“The Iron Hut was ancient when we settled the land.” Kaina turned his attentions to the now-groaning Naiteru. “He doesn’t have much time. I fear that none of us do.”
“Then I suppose someone must go and ask the Brotherhood to stop their magics. I will ask them as nicely as possible.”
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