Her heart pounding, she took her first uncertain steps away from the dying fire and the bodies of her companions. She hoped they only appeared dead to her sleeping mind. She had to believe that, or grief and fear would destroy her. Above her, the moon shone like a glaring eye, cold and cruel, as she left the safety of the camp. The mountain was calling.
The winding path was hidden in shadow and she heard the scurrying of creatures beyond. Some sounded tiny and fearful, and she wondered what was making them run. There were other sounds too. Large, shifting noises, like the shuffling of immense feet, the snapping of huge mouths. Something shrieked then, close by, and she whirled round with a cry, clutching the little flint dagger Tawodi had made for her. She was a hunter, but not a warrior, and she was terrified of the things she knew were lying in wait for her.
The crash of rolling waves reached her ears and she pressed on, guided by the sound of the water. The vast lake lay up ahead and she heard the voice of the terrible fish, calling as one, calling her. She couldn’t see them against the blackness of the water, but she could feel their eyes on her.
With a shudder she turned away, towards the Edge of the World. Chaos had come. The sky churned, blood-red in the unnatural night. Shards of light split the darkness with a terrifying crash, illuminating the living things all around her. Baleful eyes turned to her, gleaming with hatred, but she could not see the one who had summoned her, the black-eyed creature with the moth wings.
She heard the damp step of something behind her and knew that the fish had crept out of the lake. They stood whispering behind her, reaching out to touch her with their dripping fins. Her fingers trembled on the handle of her dagger as she turned to see. They stood upright, large as bears, their slick mouths gulping, their hideous pink gills flaring.
“What are you?” she forced herself to ask. “What am I here to see?”
But they only continued to gulp, turning their awful heads to look upon the scene below. Then they inched towards her.
She recoiled from the slimy wet slap of their fins against the ground, but there was nowhere to go. They had herded her to the edge. Below lay the cold plateau, strewn with creatures she didn’t want to face, indescribable creatures that called her, speaking her name in guttural tones. The dagger wavered in her hand as she brandished it, but the fish were not deterred. They shuffled forwards, their intention horrifyingly clear. She could never hope to kill them all.
There was only one place to go. She closed her eyes and jumped.
It took her endless moments to realize that she had reached the bottom and that the fall had not killed her.
She lay in the dust of the ash-gray plateau. All around her was the sound of hissing, slithering things as they came towards her. She had dropped the dagger.
Backing away, she clawed frantically at her back, feeling for her bow. Her arrows lay scattered around her and she snatched one up and slipped it into the notch of the bow, raised it and aimed. Her fingers trembled and she loosed the arrow hurriedly. Still, it struck one of the creatures, a toad-like thing with pincers and scores of tiny red eyes.
The beast screamed, rearing back in rage and pain. It flailed at the wound and Sunoyi gasped as she saw its skin flicker, changing color like the shell of a beetle in the sunlight. Blood seeped into the dust at its feet and it lurched towards her, its flesh like mud, soft and shifting.
Sunoyi lifted the bow again, but the creature gave another howl and scuttled away. She carefully got to her feet, turning in a circle to see how many more there were. They were monstrous to look at, but it seemed they were easily wounded and easily frightened. She spied the dagger lying a few feet away. She inched towards it until she was able to drop to her knees and grab it. The creatures parted for her, clacking insectoid jaws she couldn’t see but only hear.
She slung her bow over her arm and held the dagger out in front of her as she advanced along the plateau. A fetid mist was rolling down from the mountains all around her and Sunoyi felt dizzy looking up at it. How could she have fallen so far and survived? For a moment, her confusion threatened to disorient her and she reminded herself that this was all a dream.
But hadn’t the medicine man told her that the Edge of the World was real? She looked up at the Dreaming Moon but the churning red eye offered no guidance. What if she never woke from the dream? Worse still, what if all the creatures around her were dreaming too? What happened if they woke alongside her?
She shuddered and continued on. She had no idea where she was going, but she felt pulled in the direction of the descending mist. The creatures quivered as they moved aside for her, giving strange voice to their fear. The one she had wounded stayed closest, burbling like a leaf-choked stream. She felt lulled by the sounds they made, as though they were honoring her in their alien language, changing her name to one of their own.
The fog made her wary. She didn’t like the idea of being lost in it. But the creatures had begun to hang back. They seemed unwilling to follow her any further. Sunoyi took a deep breath and plunged forwards, into the swirling arms of the mist.
It enveloped her like smoke, writhing around her like the ghosts of a thousand snakes. It smelled of colors and tasted of sound. Almost immediately, she found herself yielding to its seductive embrace. The vapor seeped into her mouth, her nose, her eyes. She gasped as it slipped beneath her deerskin tunic, teasing her skin with a powdery touch that was unnervingly pleasant. She felt as though she were drowning in the air.
And then he was there. The black-eyed moth.
He rose on four of his many legs, his great wings unfolding above her. Light streamed through jagged rents in his wings and she saw that his body was little more than a husk, a papery shell like the cicadas left behind when they woke from the strange sleep during which they grew wings. Sunoyi sensed that this creature was very old. Older than the wisest chief, the oldest tribe, older even than the world and all the living things that had ever walked upon it.
She met his black eyes and her mouth opened as if to scream although she herself felt no fear. There was something human in the face that peered down at her, something of remembered movement in the spiky legs he wrapped around her.
Without thinking, Sunoyi raised the dagger and plunged it into the creature’s body. It sank with a solid crunch, disappearing inside. But there was no cry of fury, no spasm of pain. Instead, the creature clutched her tightly and drew her close. Now she did scream, as her body pressed against the brittle husk. Her hands crushed its outer shell and she felt something soft and sticky within it, like sap inside a tree. Uncountable legs enfolded her and she struggled desperately, to no avail.
It was then that she realized the creature was singing. Its voice was so alien she thought her ears would burst from the sound of it. Each whispered exhalation was like a knife slitting the threads of her mind one by one. She felt the nearness of death and something beyond, something distinctly other. She dug inside the monster’s body, searching for her dagger.
All at once her back was alive with searing pain. Time seemed to slow as she struggled to see anything but the clutching legs and crumbling husk of the creature holding her tightly in its grasp. Its wings began to beat. Slowly, purposefully. The fog swirled around them and the pale dust of the plateau rose into the sky like a swarm of tiny insects. They rose with it.
Sunoyi cried out again but no sound came. She was past believing any of this was a dream. She knew that if she woke now, she would fall and die. Far below, she could see the hideous forms of the creatures that had first tested her and then led her to the monster that held her now.
It carried her higher and higher, up to where only the mighty condor flew, and then it flew higher still. The world below was a writhing mass of insignificance, of tiny lives that were of no consequence to the terrible world in which she now found herself. But all the while, her captor continued to sing, its voice transforming her like slow, delicious poison.
At last she found the dagger. She pulled it free and began to hack
at the creature’s left wing as it carried her over the range of jagged mountains. It seemed to feel no pain as she chopped and sawed through the papery skin and crumbling bone. For a moment, she even thought she heard it laugh.
When the creature dropped her, she screamed. She fell and fell and fell, her arms and legs flailing in the air as she tumbled towards the gray expanse that was rushing to meet her. She was ready to die, ready to hit the ground and be torn from life forever. It took her a long time to realize that she was no longer falling; she was flying.
Extending to either side of her were large powdery wings, like those of a moth. And as she fluttered to the floor of the ash-gray plateau, she realized with a dawning sense of terrible joy why she had been chosen. The creature who had transformed her lay in the dust a few feet away, its sole wing thumping uselessly on the ground.
It was not the Dreaming Moon that had brought her here but the creature itself, the one with wings like hers and eyes like the end of everything.
And as she flexed her wings she began to smile. All around her were voices raised in strange song. The toad-like creatures, the fish, the hidden monsters in the trees and mountains and the crawling things beneath the dead earth. They all sang for her, praising her, welcoming her.
And the creature that had once been Sunoyi raised her head and gazed with wild black eyes at the sleeping sky. Soon the tribe would wake her and she would lead the dream-creatures out, into the waking world.
BLACK CAESAR: THE
STONE SHIP RISES
BY BALOGUN OJETADE
“Yo ho, haul together; hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die.”
Caesar’s ebon-hued hands worked deftly, swiftly. The barrel upon which a mankala game board sat shook, making the beans — used as playing pieces — dance erratically within their bowl-like spaces.
The young man who sat opposite Caesar slapped his olive-toned forehead. “You play mankala like a man possessed!”
“In my homeland, we call it wari,” Caesar said. “The game is very popular and to lose is to suffer teasing from one’s entire village.”
“So, you practice … err … wari as diligently as you practice that tricky African fencing of yours, eh?”
“Yes,” Caesar answered, staring at the gently rolling ocean.
“Wari? African fencing? Sounds … intriguingly savage!” A voice, with a thick Westminster accent, said from behind Caesar.
Caesar reset the beans on the mankala board and then closed it. The brass latch locked the two wooden halves of the board together to form the shape of a fish. “Leave us, Yuen. Tell Sifu Bo that my wife loves the tea.”
The young man leapt to his feet and bowed in respect to the ebon giant.
Caesar returned the bow.
Yuen sprinted off and Caesar placed the mankala game between his feet, never turning around to look at who stood behind him.
The middle-aged man — dressed in a ruffled, white shirt, tan trousers, and a tan leather vest — sat down in Yuen’s place.
The man extended his well-manicured hand. “Hello, sir. Hawkins, at your service.”
Caesar shook Hawkins’ hand. It was smooth and soft. “So, Mr. Hawkins, are you buying … or selling?”
“Neither. I am merely here to exchange stories with fellow adventurers.”
“And what tales might you have?” Caesar asked. “You don’t seem to be a man of the sea.”
“I have one very interesting tale with which to regale you,” Hawkins replied, placing a gold doubloon on top of the barrel. “It is a tale of mutiny … and death.”
“I’m listening,” Caesar said dryly.
Hawkins slid a silver flask from his vest pocket. He unscrewed the top and thrust it toward Caesar, who shook his head in refusal. Hawkins shrugged and took a sip, frowning as the contents of the container hit his throat. “This tale is about a mutinous dog with supernatural abilities that made him one of the most dangerous men alive. He was once a slave — as black as a million midnights — who toiled upon a ship called The Golliwog — a fitting name, for the majority of the crew was just as black and savage as the subject of our story.”
Hawkins studied Caesar’s strong, African features. “No offense, mate.”
“Please, continue,” Caesar responded.
“Well, the Captain of The Golliwog was a wealthy merchant and a man well-travelled,” Hawkins continued. “This Captain — ‘Delaney’ was his name — had suffered great loss at the hands of pirates and turned to the dark arts to rectify the problem.”
Caesar locked his gaze on Hawkins’ angular face. The Brit seemed to be searching for something deep behind Caesar’s eyes.
“Interesting,” Caesar said.
“One night, Captain Delaney used his knowledge of the occult to summon and bind an elemental spirit of molten stone,” Hawkins said. “Delaney’s crew of Irish indentured servants and black slaves hammered and carved the creature until — months later — it was formed into the shape of a war-galley. The crew then set about adding wooden decks, masts and the like. Within a year, the first seaworthy stone ship set sail.”
Hawkins took another swig from his flask and then continued his tale. “The ship was nigh impenetrable and no ship or sea-monster could defeat it. Captain Delaney, however, had not bound the elemental stone-spirit properly. The ship began to infect the Captain and his crew, its sickness spreading faster than lice in a brothel.”
“Infected?” Caesar inquired.
“Yes, and it changed them,” Hawkins replied. “All became monstrous creatures of earth, stone and sea … and their hearts grew as dark as the ocean depths. All, that is, except that mutinous black bastard of whom we speak.”
“And what of him?” Caesar asked.
“He changed, too, but differently from the rest,” Hawkins answered. “The slave grew to be twice as strong as the strongest man on land or sea…and a hundred times smarter than the most sagacious royal advisor or architect. So smart, in fact, that he figured out a way to cripple The Golliwog and send it — and its crew — to Davey Jones’ Locker.”
“If the slave sank the ship, how — pray tell — did you come to hear the story?”
Hawkins slid the flask back into his vest pocket. “You see, that’s where the story really gets interesting! Captain Delaney had time to cast one last spell before The Golliwog went down. One last spell … and the captain and crew of that old, stone ship yet live. And that slave — none the wiser — went on to Captain his own ship, thinking his secret was buried a hundred leagues under the sea. That slave — Black Caesar was his name — thought he was safe … until now.”
Caesar leapt to his feet, driving his fingers into the top of the barrel that stood between him and Hawkins. With a swing of his powerful arms, he hurled the barrel off the dock.
The heavy oak container flew over the ocean toward the horizon until it was just a tiny dot in the sky.
“You were foolish to come alone,” Caesar said.
Hawkins stood, smiling. “I didn’t.”
Suddenly, six men peeked from behind the Brit. Their faces were perpetually grinning caricatures of Hawkins’ visage.
Caesar’s eyebrows rose. “Sink me!”
The squad of Hawkins doppelgangers exploded forward.
Caesar drew something from under the wide left sleeve of his overcoat that looked akin to a barbed riding crop.
As the first doppelganger closed on him, Caesar slashed downward with his weapon, ripping a gash in the creature’s forehead. The doppelganger froze in place.
Caesar pressed the tip of his index finger to the doppelganger’s chest and pushed the paralyzed monster onto its back. He then raised his weapon above his head. “Come on! Come taste Manta’s sting!”
Caesar carved figure-eights in the air with Manta — a short whip made from rhinoceros leather, with the barbed, venomous tail of a stingray sewn into its shaft.
Hawkins and his doppelgangers encircled Caesar slo
wly.
In unison, each doppelganger drew a flask — identical to Hawkins’ — from their vests. In the hands of the grinning creatures, the silver flasks began to pulse and to warp, becoming soft and then breaking down into a liquid that flowed around each doppelganger’s right hand.
The doppelgangers extended their right arms, brandishing the blades of flesh and silver that now protruded from their wrists and then — in unison — they charged forward.
Caesar leapt high into the air, avoiding the thrusts from the doppelgangers’ blades.He thrust his hand into his overcoat and quickly withdrew a bronze disc about the size of his palm. Around the circumference of the disc were triangular blades, which gave the weapon the appearance of a sun. Caesar hurled the disc toward the ground as he somersaulted backward, high above the doppelgangers’ heads.
The heavy weapon skipped off the ground with a dull thud and flew upward, its razor-sharp blades tearing into the arm of a doppelganger.
The creature collapsed. A scream erupted from its still grinning face as its severed arm bounced across the dock.
Caesar hurled another blade toward the ground just before he landed. The blade skittered along the dock three times before it found its mark — a doppelganger’s leg, just above the knee. The doppelganger fell onto its face as its lower leg was separated from its body.
Two more blades flew from Caesar’s deft hands. Two more doppelgangers fell as their legs were rent from beneath them.
A doppelganger slashed at Caesar’s neck. He ducked the blow and then exploded upward with a crushing head-butt to the doppelganger’s chin. The creature’s eyes rolled back in its skull as it was sent flying off the dock and into the ocean.
Caesar spotted movement off to his left side. He spun toward it, slashing with Manta. The whip struck the last standing doppelganger across the jaw, tearing open its grinning maw. The creature froze as the whip’s neurotoxin severed the connection between the creature’s brain and its muscles.
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