Imaro: Book I

by Charles R. Saunders

  “Can you not use your sorcery to help?” Tanisha asked Angulu.

  The wa-nyanume shook his head.

  “The only way to end this is to replace the spike,” he said, raising his voice so the others could hear him over the sounds from the Afua’s movements.

  “I have no magic that can accomplish such a thing,” Angulu continued. “The only hope is Imaro. Otherwise…”

  “Look!” Kongolo shouted suddenly. “He’s getting up!”

  They saw Imaro rising unsteadily to his feet. But the Afua remained near him, and he was still in danger of being crushed beneath its feet. Without further hesitation, the four who had remained behind rushed toward Imaro and the towering effigy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Imaro had briefly lost consciousness when the Afua struck him. Yet even in that moment of oblivion, he had managed to stay out of the way of the effigy’s footsteps. When his mind snapped out of its daze and back into focus, he saw golden spikes coming toward him again. Scrambling shakily to his feet, he was able to evade the sharp, gleaming points.

  He looked toward the spike he had taken from Rumanzila – but it was gone!

  It had dropped from his grasp after he had fallen. Head throbbing from the pain of the blow he had received, Imaro frantically searched the ground, seeking the gleam of the spike, while at the same time avoiding the footfalls of the Afua, each of which reverberated like a thunderclap.

  Imaro could have simply given up and fled then, and allowed the Afua to continue its rampage. But now that he was close enough to the statue to touch it, an unpleasant cognizance suffused his senses… an awareness akin to kufahuma, but not exactly the same… an awareness spawned from his encounter with Chitendu in the Place of Stones… an awareness of the mchawi that was linked to the masters the oibonok had served… the High Sorcerers of Naama.

  When Rumanzila removed the spike, the mchawi was unleashed, and Imaro’s senses flared like the sunrise. In his deepest core, Imaro knew he had to put an end to this mchawi, as he had that of Chitendu.

  But where was the spike?

  Desperately scanning the ground, Imaro barely avoided impalement on the spikes of the Afua’s leg as it swung toward him. He did not know whether the effigy was consciously attacking him, or was simply moving without volition, like a river or the wind. He did not know whether the Afua was truly alive, or merely animated by the power of the mchawi within it. He knew only that he had to find the spike, and return the Afua to what it had been when he first saw it in the Mtumwe shrine.

  Then his eyes caught a gleam of gold on the rocky ground. He reached for it – but the Afua’s leg came between him and the spike.

  “Ajunge!” he shouted in frustration, invoking the name of the Spear God of the Ilyassai, a god that had long since forsaken him.

  When the path was clear again, Imaro saw that the spike had vanished.

  “Ajunge!” he cried again.

  But the voice that answered him was not that of the god. It was Tanisha’s.

  “Imaro! Here!”

  Imaro turned toward Tanisha, again narrowly avoiding the Afua’s footfall. She was standing close by. She was clad only in a scrap of cloth torn from her kuva and knotted around her waist. Between her thumb and forefinger, she held the golden spike. Her eyes were wide with dear, but she did not retreat. Ngodire was at her side, as was Kongolo. Angulu was standing apart from the others.

  Imaro rushed to Tanisha’s side. As he plucked the spike from her fingers, their eyes met, and what he saw in her gaze was not an enigma. Then the warrior turned to face the Afua.

  The effigy loomed before him like a mountain clad in a forest of golden foliage. Never, not even when he was a child left behind by his mother, had Imaro felt so small, so powerless…

  But he was not entirely powerless. The spike glistened in his hand. Far above, he could see the hole from which the spike had come… a hole large enough to swallow his hand and arm.

  The reflection of the sunlight from the enlarged spikes on the statue nearly blinded Imaro. To climb them would be like trying to ascend a wall studded with arems. But that was the only way the mchawi, which was emanating in waves from the Afua, could be curtailed.

  Imaro lifted the spike to his mouth, and clamped his teeth hard onto the metal. This time, when the Afua’s leg swung toward him, he did not dodge it. Instead, he seized one of the spikes and hauled himself upward, securing holds for hands and feet.

  He tried to avoid the points of the Afua’s spikes, but some of them pierced his skin, and blood began to trickle down his body as he clambered upward. Although the spikes were embedded firmly in the wood, they were as flexible as the branches of trees … and far more slippery, as Imaro discovered to his dismay when he lost his footing and nearly fell.

  As he dangled from a spike by one hand, Imaro swayed back and forth while the Afua continued to walk. Imaro ignored the cries of consternation he heard from below. He did not look down. And he did not open his mouth.

  Seizing a spike with his other hand, Imaro regained his footing and continued his climb. The loud creaks that accompanied the Afua’s movements were deafening, but he kept his focus on his destination, which was still high above him.

  Unmindful of the pricking of the spikes against his skin, Imaro finally reached the hole where the spike clenched between his teeth had been. When he was eye-level with the hole, Imaro again almost toppled. Mchawi poured from the opening like the wind during the wet season. The magical force was neither focused nor purposeful, as it had been when wielded by Chitendu and Muburi. Instead, it was unharnessed, and almost irresistible.

  Using one hand to cling to the spike closest to the hole, Imaro used his other hand to pluck the spike from his teeth. He closed his eyes against the force of the unleashed mchawi, and pushed the sliver of gold deep into the hole. Then he pulled his hand back quickly, before the opening could close over it.

  The Afua’s movements halted with a lurch that nearly flung Imaro from his foothold. He held on with both hands even as his feet slipped from the spikes. Then a new sound replaced the groan of walking wood – a sharp crack, like the sound of lightning hitting a tree-trunk. Imaro felt the spikes rapidly shrinking in his grasp.

  And suddenly, he was falling…

  Imaro looked down then, and it appeared that the ground was rushing up to meet him. The cracking sounds grew louder. The spikes he was holding, now small, slipped out of his hands. Pieces of wood fell like rain around him as he plummeted to the unyielding earth.

  Imaro braced himself as best as he could for the inevitable crash. When it came, its impact was harder than any he had ever experienced, including the repeated blows of Mbuto’s whip. Then pain and oblivion claimed him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Consciousness slowly returned to Imaro – but he quickly wished it hadn’t. He felt as though every bone in his body had been shattered – yet he found that he was able to move his limbs, painful though that process proved to be. When he opened his eyes, his vision blurred for a moment, then came into clear focus.

  He saw a circle of concerned faces surrounding him. Foremost among them was Tanisha’s. She leaned close to him, her hands touching his face. The emotions on her face, in her eyes, were clearly delineated: relief and love.

  Kongolo and Ngodire were there, too, as was Angulu. So were many others. For after their first outburst of blind panic subsided, most of the haramia had returned to the encampment to aid those who had not fled. They had witnessed Imaro’s feat, and now they regarded him with undisguised awe, as though he were more than human.

  Bomunu was the only haramia whose expression conveyed anything other than respect. Anger smoldered in the Zanjian’s eyes. Anger… and envy.

  At the moment, Imaro did not care what was on the mind of Bomunu, nor anyone else other than Tanisha. Even though the smallest of movements sent lances of pain through his body, he struggled to his feet, brushing aside the hands that tried to hold him down.

  “The
Afua,” Imaro said, his voice thick with the struggle to speak. “Where is it?

  As the warrior swayed, determined to remain on his feet, Tanisha slipped an arm around his waist to steady him. He gave her a look of gratitude.

  “There it is, Imaro,” she said, gesturing with her free hand.

  The haramia stood aside. When Imaro looked at the ground a few paces away, he saw shards of wood scattered over a wide area, none of them larger than a finger. Interspersed among the fragments of the Afua were the golden spikes that had once adorned it. Now, tarnish blackened the metal like the decay of death.

  Imaro raised his eyes – and looked upon a scene of devastation. The body of Rumanzila still lay beneath that of Mbuto. The crushed remnants of the luckless bandits who had fallen beneath the Afua’s feet were strewn across the ground. In the distance, more haramia were straggling into the hideout. Some of them led horses that pranced nervously, wary of the fading residue of mchawi from the Afua.

  The Ilyassai’s kufahuma had calmed, however. The mchawi Rumanzila had released when he removed the spike was dissipating like morning mist. No longer was the unleashed sorcerous energy a menace – but it was still a concern.

  Then Bomunu’s voice broke through the undercurrent of murmurs that had accompanied Imaro’s return to consciousness.

  “It’s time to stop standing around,” he said. “This place is cursed. We’ve got to get out of here. Gather up your gear; we need to find another place to camp before the sun goes down.”

  The murmurs rose in volume, and Kongolo spoke for most of the other haramia.

  “Who are you to give us orders?” he demanded.

  The Zanjian brushed a few specks of dust from his clothing before deigning to reply.

  “I was second-in-command to Rumanzila,” he said. “Rumanzila is dead. So now, I am your leader. Is that so difficult to understand?”

  Kongolo’s response was a sneer.

  “That may be the way things are done in the palaces of Zanj,” he said. “But it’s not the way the haramia do things. I would’ve thought you’d have learned that by now, Bomunu.”

  Bomunu’s eyes shifted for a moment, but his bravado remained intact.

  “How, then, did Rumanzila become leader?” he asked.

  “He earned it,” Kongolo snapped. “He didn’t inherit it.”

  “And what have you done lately to earn it, Bomunu?” Angulu asked. The wa-nyanume’s tone dripped with contempt.

  “I can’t think of anything,” Ngodire said, speaking, literally, above others who were making similar remarks. “Can anyone else?”

  “Where were you when that accursed statue was trampling us like bugs?” Kongolo demanded, his eyes narrowed in anger as they focused on the Zanjian.

  “Who was it that finally saved us all, Bomunu?” asked Ngodire. “It certainly wasn’t you.”

  Other bandits shouted in agreement. Bomunu knew the direction in which the haramia were leaning, and he knew it wasn’t toward him. He glanced in Imaro’s direction. The Ilyassai’s face revealed nothing of what he was thinking. Tanisha, however, was smiling.

  “We cannot be led by an outlander,” Bomunu argued, desperation creeping into his voice.

  “Why not?” Angulu asked. “Are we not all outlanders? Or, at least, outcasts?

  “You know what I mean!” Bomunu shouted. “We need a leader who has experience.”

  He gestured toward Imaro.

  “He doesn’t have the experience. I do.”

  “Did your ‘experience’ help us this time, Bomunu?” Angulu asked. “Did mine? Did anybody’s?”

  To those questions, Bomunu had no reply.

  Kongolo spoke then, loudly enough for all the haramia to hear.

  “Which one do we want to lead us? Bomunu? Or Imaro?”

  The haramias’ answer was immediate and overwhelming, shouted from dozens of throats:

  “Imaro! Imaro! Imaro!”

  Their shouts echoed throughout the encampment. Imaro listened in amazement as the haramia repeated his name and waved their weapons over their heads. Imaro turned to Tanisha, who tightened her grasp around his waist and smiled up at him. Her smile, and the adulation of the haramia, eased the ache of his injuries – and of the old wounds he carried inside.

  He leaned closer to Tanisha.

  “Will you stay with me, even though death is on my trail?” he asked.

  “I would rather die with you than live without you,” she said.

  As the haramia continued to call out for Imaro, Bomunu’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Jealousy smoldered in his eyes as he glared at Imaro and Tanisha. The humiliation of having the position he considered rightfully his usurped by a barbarian from some faraway tribe was already eating into his soul.

  Eventually, the clamor subsided. Kongolo looked at Bomunu with an expression that mingled pity and contempt.

  “There’s your answer,” he said.

  Then he turned to the Ilyassai.

  “You have heard the will of the haramia, Imaro,” Kongolo said. “We want you to lead us. Will you?”

  Imaro looked at him, and the others. His aches continued, and his dark skin had acquired darker bruises. Blood from the wounds the tips of the Afua’s spikes had made trickled down his chest and abdomen, and soaked into his suruali. He wanted nothing more than to lie down in his shelter until the pain abated.

  “I will lead you,” he said.

  Again, the haramia erupted into shouts, this time in celebration. Some cried out Imaro’s name; others simply yelled out in exuberation, as well as relief that the danger the Afua had posed was gone. Only Bomunu remained silent.

  Amid the tumult, few noticed a commotion at the fringes of the crowd. The distraction grew as two haramia pushed their way forward, firmly gripping the arms of a person they half-dragged and half-carried between them.

  When they reached the front of the crowd, near the place where Imaro and Tanisha were standing, the bandits shoved their captive ahead of them. It was a man – a man who was emaciated, weaponless, bedraggled and nearly naked. Patterns of scars covered his skin. The man looked up at the Ilyassai, and uttered the same word the haramia had been shouting:

  “Imaro.”

  And for all the visible privations the intruder had obviously undergone, as well as the dirt that splotched his skin and the recent wounds that cut across his scarifications, Imaro knew this man, even though he never thought he would see him again.

  “Busa,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “This one has been saying your name ever since we caught him sneaking around here,” one of Busa’s captors said.

  “It’s like that’s the only word he knows how to say,” the other added.

  Those among the haramia, including Kongolo, who had gone to the Kajua to steal the Afua recognized Busa as one of the river people.

  “You know him?” Kongolo asked Imaro.

  “Yes,” the warrior replied.

  Busa’s gaze shifted between Imaro and the area where the fragments of the Afua were scattered. Despair darkened his eyes. Bitterness tinged his tone when he spoke to Imaro.

  “So, these are the ones who took away the Afua. You were part of it all along, weren’t you?”

  Imaro slipped out of Tanisha’s grasp and took a step toward the Mtumwe, who did not flinch or change his expression.

  “I had nothing to do with it, Busa,” he said, speaking slowly, for he had half-forgotten the river people’s tongue. “These people took me, as well as the Afua.”

  “Then why are they treating you as one of their own?” Busa demanded, his voice rising even though he was a captive.

  Some of the haramia put their hands on the hilts of their weapons. They did not understand Busa’s language, but the angry tone of his voice was unmistakable. Kongolo, who had a rudimentary grasp of the river-people’s speech, was also apprehensive, for all that the scarred man was an unarmed, helpless captive. Had Imaro not been just as helpless when he first came among them
?

  Imaro remained calm.

  “Did you see what happened to the Afua?” he asked.

  The haunted, anguished look the reappeared in Busa’s eyes answered the question even before he spoke.

  “I… saw.”

  “There was evil in the Afua, Busa,” Imaro said. “Evil magic that would have destroyed the Mtumwe, sooner or later. You thought the Afua would bring good luck to the kijiji. Now you have seen it for what it really is.”

  Busa looked at the ground. His shoulders trembled, and his hands clenched into fists. He shook his head in sadness. When he looked up again at Imaro, his face was as bleak as the face of death.

  “Ariathu sent us to bring it back,” he said.

  “‘Us’”? Imaro asked. “Where are the others?”

  “Dead. All dead, except me.”

  Imaro fell silent then, thinking of the long distance Busa and the others had traveled in search of the Afua, and the dangers they must have faced in country that was at once hostile and unfamiliar.

  “Was Msuli with you?” he finally asked.

  “Yes.”

  Imaro’s only sign of emotion was a long, slow exhale. He deeply mourned the death of Msuli, and he wondered whether he had done either Msuli or Busa a favor by saving them from the teeth of the crocodile…

  “I cannot go back to the kijiji without the Afua,” Busa said.

  And I cannot go back to the Ilyassai at all, Imaro thought – for once, without bitterness.

  “I understand,” he said to Busa.

  “I have nowhere else to go,” Busa said, his voice devoid of inflection.

  “That is not true, Busa,” said Imaro.

  The Mtumwe gave him a puzzled look. Imaro’s arm swept outward in an expansive gesture that included all the haramia, who were listening intently to the exchange even though it was in a language few of them could understand.

  “These were not my people before,” Imaro said. “They stole me, just as they stole the Afua. But they are my people now. You once offered me a place among your people. Now, I offer you a place among mine.”