Imaro: Book I

by Charles R. Saunders

  Again, the former oibonok’s head tilted back. His laughter was like the bark of Matisho.

  “Oh, I am hard, hard to kill,” Chitendu continued. “Even the Masters cannot kill me, though they confine me to this pile of fallen stone as punishment – punishment for my all-too-human desire for Katisa…”

  Then Chitendu’s face contorted into a mask of malevolence. His emerald eyes blazed brighter, and a renewed mystic force assailed Imaro’s mind. Pain unlike any he had experienced in mafundishu-ya-muran lashed at him like a whip made of thorns. Yet he neither moved nor cried out, for the paralytic bonds of Chitendu’s mchawi continued to hold him in a relentless grip.

  Still, the hot core of hatred within Imaro had not been diminished by the experience of helplessness. The core burned more fiercely than ever, for he was facing the man responsible for the events that caused the wretchedness of his life among the Ilyassai.

  He still lived. And he still had his weapons…

  Abruptly, Chitendu ceased his assault. Imaro gasped; breathing was the only function he could still control. His muscles felt as if they had been wrenched from their moorings. But he continued to glare defiantly at his enemy, ignoring the irony of his arem and simi clutched uselessly in his hands.

  Chitendu laughed again.

  “So much like Katisa you are,” he said.

  His eyes flared, as if to launch another assault. Then the glow subsided.

  “I will tell you a tale, son-of-no-father,” Chitendu continued. “Once I was nothing more than a caster of spells and a feeder of blood to a god who offers nothing in return. I began to do different magic – mchawi. Then, I was called … summoned by an emissary of the High Sorcerers of Naama, who are the Chosen of the Mashataan, the Demon Gods. Somehow, they had detected my secret wanderings into mchawi.

  “The man from Naama offered me power; a place in the High Sorcerers’ plan to conquer and dominate all. For even in far-away Naama, the ferocity of the Ilyassai was well known. Long had the Naamans desired to use the Ilyassai as a weapon to spread destruction in the lands of the east.

  “Time and again, the Naamans tried, and failed, to gain contact of any kind with the Ilyassai – until I began my delvings into mchawi. I desired the power the Naamans offered me. But I desired Katisa more…

  “Katisa rejected me, despised me, called me ‘devil-man.’ She loved a young warrior who was about to go on olmaiyo. I caused him to be slain by Ngatun, and the elders, and her father, had no choice other than to give her to me in marriage.

  “But she escaped me, and not all the power the Mashataan had granted me could return her to me. So I carried out the Naamans’ plan, and wove a web of mchawi around the Kitoko clan, causing them to think they were serving Ajunge when they were truly following the purposes of the Demon Gods. My control over them was nearly complete and the other clans would soon follow – and then Katisa returned!

  “She bore you with her… and something else – an amulet forged by the Kwenda Mawingu, the Cloud Striders, themselves. The amulet broke my power; it caused the Kitoko to see me as I truly was – and am. They attacked me, drove me from the manyattas, though they could not slay me. Not even the Naamans themselves could slay me…

  “But they could punish me. For had I not caused Katisa to flee from me, she would never have come into possession of the amulet that destroyed the designs of both the Naamans and the Mashataan.

  “The Naamans imprisoned me here with mystic bonds. I need neither food nor drink. I live by the mchawi that has made me what I am. I have lived for a purpose – one that you would understand well.

  “Katisa was far beyond my reach. But you were not.

  “Muburi was the one I needed. My mchawi can reach beyond the Place of Stones, even though my body is confined here. And a greater oibonok can always bend the will of a lesser one.

  “Through Muburi, I caused you to be declared ilmonek, and to endure the Shaming. Then you escaped, and slew Muburi, thinking you had triumphed. Yet here you are, and in your own desire for vengeance, you have gained a more complete retribution for me!”

  Chitendu’s voice had risen to a keening shriek. Throughout the long diatribe, Imaro had striven vainly against the power that held him maddeningly immobile. He found Chitendu’s rantings insane, yet tantalizing as well. They answered some of the questions that had plagued Imaro throughout his life, but there were still others that remained mysteries. And there was one other, the answer to which he was beginning to dread: Was Keteke still alive?

  Again, Chitendu seemed to be aware of the warrior’s thoughts.

  “Your Zamburu woman is here, son of Katisa,” he mocked. “She has been a guest of my friends. For I am not alone here. The original builders of this place are here, too. Through my mchawi, I restored them to life, although they are not as they once were.

  “The Zamburu woman has entertained my friends well. They will return her to you now…”

  Raising a shrouded arm, Chitendu uttered syllables in a language that jarred unpleasantly against Imaro’s ears. From the shadows of the ruined chamber behind Chitendu, a horde of repellant shapes came forward, moving with a shambling gait. Yet for all their awkwardness, they moved swiftly, filling the space between the warrior and the wizard.

  The builders of the Place of Stones were short, squat, manlike in shape… and thoroughly nightmarish. Narrow, elongated eyes glittered balefully in the green light suffusing the ruin. Bestial fangs filled their gaping mouths. Colorless hair sprouted in thin patches across scabrous, unclothed skin. Cat-like claws curved from the fingers of hands otherwise human in form.

  These were the people of the Place of Stones, whose very name had long since been forgotten. Dead for unimaginable ages, the remnants of their life-essence had been locked by arcane necromancy into the eroded stone of their fallen edifice. Now they walked again, summoned into a macabre semblance of life by the mchawi of Chitendu. Of their former high degree of culture and intellect, not a trace remained. Now, they were only creatures of Chitendu…

  But it was not the sight of the inhabitants of the Place of Stones that smote Imaro with sick horror. It was the thing the largest of them held upraised in its paws – a skeleton, human, with blood still dripping from glistening white bones. The flesh that had clothed the bones had only recently been stripped away.

  The head, however, remained intact above the bare vertebrae of the skeleton’s neck. The face – hideously distorted by an expression of inconceivable terror – was Keteke’s.

  A hoarse cry of despair tore from Imaro’s throat. He remembered Kulu, his ngombe, the only being, human or otherwise, other than Keteke that he had allowed himself to care for. He remembered Kulu, dead, her heart ripped from her body by N’tu-mwaa. And now Keteke was dead, too, torn apart by demons in the thrall of another sorcerer, one who was far more powerful than the Turkhana had been. Both deaths were his fault, for all his strength and prowess…

  Now a scarlet haze burned in front of Imaro’s eyes, blotting out the emerald emanations of Chitendu’s mchawi. The warrior’s hatred surged within him as though it had suddenly acquired an independent life. The unseen bonds that held him helpless melted in the face of Imaro’s incandescent rage. Then, abruptly, he was free, his body once again his own to command.

  His action was instantaneous.

  With one hand, he hurled his arem at Chitendu. With the other, he swung his simi in a sweeping, deadly semicircle.

  The arem struck squarely in the center of Chitendu’s cloak. And the simi slashed through the neck of the creature that held Keteke’s remains. The beastlike head flew from the creature’s shoulders and bounced toward the feet of Chitendu. No blood flowed from its wound.

  As the resurrected inhabitant of the Place of Stones collapsed to the ground, dead for the second time, its hands loosed their burden. The blood-smeared bones of Keteke clattered loudly against broken rock. Her face stared skyward, mouth open in a soundless scream.

  Chitendu, betraying no sign of pain despite
the iron spearpoint lodged in his body, issued orders to his minions in a series of croaks and chitters that were never meant for a human tongue to utter. As one, the horde shuffled forward, momentarily driving Imaro back by sheer weight of numbers. They bore no weapons, but their fangs and talons were as deadly as those of any beast. Like a pack of Mbwa, the wild dog, attacking a buffalo, they leaped and tore at their towering foe.

  Halting his retreat, Imaro lashed left and right with all the weapons he had at his disposal: his simi, his balled left fist, and his bare, callused feet. Like a scythe through grain, he sheared his way through the demonic horde. Although his foes’ bodies were animated by Chitendu’s mchawi, and could not be slain by mortal means, their ancient flesh was so brittle that a solid blow could inflict incapacitating damage.

  Imaro bled from wounds the creatures’ teeth and claws tore in his flesh when they first swarmed over him. But now, he waded through their ranks as though he were fording a stream, leaving a trail of shattered heads, severed limbs and broken bodies behind him.

  Battle-madness claimed him fully now. The blood-blaze that had frightened Keteke lit his eyes, and curses spilled from his lips as he fought his way closer to Chitendu. His eyes locked with those of the former oibonok. It was then that Chitendu realized that he would never again gain control of the mind of the young warrior and keep him immobile. But there were other ways to complete his vengeance against the son of Katisa…

  Again, Chitendu spoke to the inhabitants of the dead city. Those that had not been smashed asunder by Imaro’s assault halted in mid-motion, then stepped aside, leaving Imaro a clear path to their master. Teeth bared in a brutal snarl, the warrior charged forward, raising his simi for a slash that would have separated Muburi’s head from his shoulders – had it landed.

  It did not land. For when Chitendu suddenly shrugged the cloak from his shoulders, Imaro halted his headlong rush as though he had run into an unseen, adamantine barrier. He stared in gaping disbelief, his simi nearly dropping from fingers rendered numb by the sight of what lay beneath the cloak…

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Chitendu was even more inhuman than his resurrected minions. His elephantine legs rose from the ground like wrinkled tree trunks. Long, bony arms hung like sticks from a pair of narrow, knobby shoulders. The hands at their ends were incongruously delicate and graceful. Other than his head, those hands were the only human features Chitendu had left.

  His torso was worst of all: a mass of tendrils that seemed imbued with a life independent from that of the rest of his hideous form. Like a swarm of maggots infesting a rotted carcass, the tendrils writhed, expanding and contracting in their anchors of grotesque, alien tissue. They glowed green, like tomb-fungus. Some of them curled around the shaft of Imaro’s arem.

  “Now you see the price I paid for my power,” Chitendu intoned, looking at Imaro intently.

  “No wielder of the mchawi of the Mashataan may long retain human form. Only the very shape of the Demon Gods may contain the true source of their magic. The Chosen of Naama know – and I quickly learned – that with each succeeding invocation of the power of the Mashataan, the wielder becomes less human and more Mashataan. I paid the price – gladly.

  “But not for this! Not for this!”

  The tentacles thrashed in wild agitation, as though animated by Chitendu’s burst of bitterness and self-pity.

  Then Imaro struck.

  Of the horrendous consequences of the use of Mashataan magic, Imaro cared nothing. He knew only that beyond the wrong Chitendu had done to him and his mother, there was a deeper, more insidious evil that clung to the former oibonok like the cloak he had just discarded. That evil had to be obliterated.

  In the red tide of rage bursting through Imaro’s mind washed away the moment of apprehension Chitendu’s true appearance had engendered. Roaring out a battle cry, the warrior sprang across the few yards separating him from his enemy. With both hands, he plunged his simi deep into Chitendu’s bulbous torso. Then, with a savage burst of strength, he ripped the blade upward, seeking to disembowel his monstrous foe.

  Laughter was Chitendu’s only response – laughter as inhuman as the form he wore; laughter that continued even as the serpentine coils of his intestines spilled to the ground.

  Then an elongated arm lashed out, catching Imaro across the face. Despite its emaciation, there was disproportionate strength in that arm; Imaro fell as though he had been struck by a Turkhana club. Before he could regain his feet, a blinding beam of emerald light shot from a cluster of tentacles that had stiffened like pointing fingers.

  Enveloping the iron blade of the simi, the green ray lanced down to its hilt and into Imaro’s hand. Biting back a cry of agony, Imaro dropped the weapon. Its blade was a melted, smoking ruin before it hit the ground. Imaro’s hand felt as though he had just pulled it from a fire.

  The warrior stared in disbelief as the shaft of the arem embedded in Chitendu’s body burst into green flame, then crumbled into ash. Again, the tentacles brightened, aimed and launched a coruscating bolt of destruction – this time, directly at Imaro.

  But there was no target for the blast. Reacting with pantherish speed, the warrior had hurled himself behind a block of fallen stone. It was unfeeling rock that bore the brunt of Chitendu’s green fire.

  No longer did Chitendu laugh. His demon-fire spoke for him. Bolt after bolt of emerald destruction seared into the stone that shielded Imaro. The rock began to glow with heat; heat that forced Imaro to abandon a shelter that had had proven to be far too temporary.

  Keeping his body low to the ground, the warrior raced across the broken stone, casting his gaze left and right in search of anything he could use as a weapon. His face betrayed no fear, only frustration at the thwarting of his vengeance.

  Triumph imminent, Chitendu laughed again. He turned ponderously on his thick legs, stepped forward… and crashed heavily to the ground, feet entangled in his own spilled intestines.

  A bolt of demon-fire, trapped between the ground and Chitendu’s bulky body, consumed the alien flesh as ordinary flames or weapons never could. An unearthly shriek escaped the former oibonok’s lips.

  Even as Chitendu strove clumsily to rise, Imaro sprang into action. Bending quickly, he caught a heavy slab of stone in an iron grasp. Muscles cracking and straining beneath his umber skin, he raised the slab high over his head. Then, teeth clenched in exertion, he staggered toward Chitendu.

  Head half-turned in Imaro’s direction, Chitendu thrashed and struggled in a frenzied effort to rise. But his ungainly Mashataan body hindered his efforts. Imaro towered above him, the weight of the slab of stone cording his arms.

  Chitendu shuddered: his long-delayed doom was upon him at last. Unless…

  “Wait!” Chitendu screamed to Imaro. “I can tell you who your father is!”

  Imaro hesitated. And during that brief moment of respite, Chitendu heaved his body onto its back. The waving tendrils stiffened, brightened…

  And Imaro hurled the heavy slab downward. It smashed Chitendu’s skull like an eggshell. Imaro had reasoned that the human parts of Chitendu’s hybrid form were the most vulnerable, and his surmise had proven correct.

  A grayish paste oozed from beneath the broken slab. The green-glowing tendrils writhed a moment longer. Then they faded and hung limply, whatever life they possessed having fled with Chitendu’s. The green glare of Chitendu’s mchawi faded, to be replaced by the clean light of Mwesu the moon.

  But Imaro’s fight was not yet over…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Strength ebbed abruptly from the warrior’s limbs. It was not so much the battles with the creatures and Chitendu that had drained him of energy; it was the debilitating struggle to free his mind from the shackles of Chitendu’s mchawi. Any sense of personal triumph he felt at having slain Chitendu was cancelled by the sight of Keteke’s face fixed in an eternal spasm of horror, echoing an endless, soundless scream.

  Leaning against the remnant of a pillar, Imaro look
ed down at the piteous remains of Keteke. She had prophesied her own death, and Imaro felt responsible for it.

  Then a slight noise brought his attention back to the Place of Stones. And he realized that not all of Chitendu’s mchawi had died with him. The last denizens of the Place of Stones were advancing toward him. Imaro counted more than a score of them. In the blankness that had once been their minds, only Chitendu’s final command remained: Kill.

  Weakened and weaponless, Imaro knew he could not prevail against the undead horde. He would fight them, and kill some of them, but sooner or later, their teeth and talons would overcome him, and he would join Chitendu and Keteke in death.

  He gathered the last of his strength, pulled himself upright, and knotted his hands into maul-like fists. If he must die now, his end would not be an easy one.

  The creatures drew closer. Imaro crouched, ready to spring recklessly into their midst. Before he could move, the creatures were raked by a volley of Ilyassai arems launched from the darkness.

  Blinking in disbelief, Imaro saw a score of warriors emerge from the shadows of the Place of Stones. They fell upon the undead things like lions, hacking them to pieces with their simis. Confused, bereft of the guidance of Chitendu’s will, the creatures’ resistance collapsed quickly. Before long, they lay scattered across the barren stone, once again as one with their fallen city.

  The slaughter done, the warriors of the Kitoko clan approached Imaro. He glared at them like a cornered beast.

  The warriors had broken the long tradition forbidding them to enter the Place of Stones. To Imaro, their only possible purpose in doing so was to kill him for having stampeded the ngombes. They had slain the creatures menacing him only so that they could save the satisfaction of slaying him for themselves.

  In the light of Mwesu, Imaro recognized some of the warriors. Mubaku, the ol-arem, was there. So was Masadu. Many of the warriors in this band had accompanied Imaro on his ill-fated olmaiyo. Mubaku and Masadu continued to advance toward Imaro after the others halted several paces from him. Imaro’s muscles tensed, as though he were about to hurl himself at them. Sensing the young warrior’s mood, the ol-arem broke the silence.