by Marlon James
He flapped down, his back to the window as the Leopard locked his ankles around one of the turrets sticking out of the wall and swung upside down until he and his bow and arrow were in the window frame. He fired the first and drew the second, and fired the second and drew the third, and fired the third, all zup zup zup in Sasabonsam’s back. He squawked like a crow, flapped, crashed into the wall, then fell into the water. He jumped up as I jumped up and I hurled one of my axes into his back. He flipped around, not wounded, not pained, just annoyed. The woman, Nsaka Ne Vampi, held the torch close to her mouth and blew a storm of flame that jumped on his hair. Sasabonsam squawked and screamed and swung both his wings open, the right knocking out part of the steps, the left cracking the wall. Leopard jumped through the window with his bow firing into the water, and I almost shouted that I’m down here. He landed on his toes at the top of the steps, and jumped right off, right into the swat of Sasabonsam’s wing, which sent him into a pile that sounded like dead branches breaking. I swam to the stairs, and jumped up on a step that crumbled under me. I jumped up again as Nsaka swam towards me. Sasabonsam, trying to pull arrows out of his back, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her across the water. Nsaka Ne Vampi, daggers in both hands, stabbed him in the right thigh, but he caught her left hand and pulled it back, determined to break it off. She screamed. I pulled my second ax to jump over the stairs at him when Sadogo ran in and punched Sasabonsam straight in the temple. He fell back, letting go of Nsaka Ne Vampi. Sasabonsam howled, but ducked Sadogo’s second punch. His brother was the cunning one; he was the fighter. He tried to swing his huge wing around to swat Sadogo, but Sadogo punched a hole through it and tore his hand free. Sasabonsam screamed. He seemed to fall back, but jumped up and kicked Sadogo right in the chest with both feet. Sadogo went barreling, stumbling and falling in the water. Sasabonsam leapt after him. Mossi jumped in, from where I do not know, bracing a spear in the water and setting it slant for Sasabonsam to land on it, the spear going right through his side. Sadogo jumped back up and began punching into the water.
“The boy!” Mossi said.
He waded over to the steps and I pulled him up. Nsaka Ne Vampi walked past me, but I knew she wasn’t trying to save the boy. Mossi drew his two swords and followed me. At the top of the stairs were two rooms. Nsaka Ne Vampi stood in the entry to one of the rooms, feeling the knives in her hands, until blue light flashed from the right. I got to the door first. Ipundulu was on the floor, charred, black, half-changed into a man but all along his arms stalks jutted out, all that was left of his wings. He jumped when he saw me, opened his arms, and there was the boy lying on his chest. He pushed the boy off hard and he stumbled away, cowering in a corner. Both Nsaka Ne Vampi and Mossi stepped past me. They looked at him, Nsaka already screaming that she will kill him for infecting Nyka with his demon sickness. Mossi held out both swords, but also looked behind us, hearing Sadogo still fighting Sasabonsam with the King sister’s men, who must have been down there by now. I looked at the boy. I would have sworn to any god that before Ipundulu pushed him away, the boy was sucking the lightning bird’s nipple, drinking from it like he was suckling a mother. Maybe a boy torn too early from his mother still yearned for the breast, or maybe this Ipundulu was doing indecent acts with the boy, or maybe my eyes worked lies in the dark.
The Ipundulu, he lay there on the floor, sputtering from his mouth, blabbering, and groaning and trembling as if fever made him shake. Watching him, and watching Mossi and Nsaka Ne Vampi close in on him, I felt something. Not pity, but something. Outside, Sasabonsam screeched, and all of us turned around. The Ipundulu jumped and ran for the window. He limped, but was still much stronger than I thought from all the trembling and sputtering. Before Mossi turned to chase him Nsaka Ne Vampi’s first dagger burst right through the back of his neck. Ipundulu fell to his knees but not flat on the ground. Mossi ran up, swung his sword, and chopped his head off.
In the corner, the boy cried. I walked over, thinking of what to say to him, something warm, like Young one, it is over, your torment, or Behold, we take you to your mother, or Come now, you are so young but I will give you dolo so that you sleep and will awake in your own bed for the first time in your still short life. But I said nothing. He cried, gentle sobs, and stared at the rugs Ipundulu had slept on. Here is what I saw. From his mouth came a child’s sorrow, a cry that turned into a cough and back into a cry. From his eyes, nothing. From his cheeks and his brow, nothing. Even his mouth barely moved more than a mumble. He looked at me with the same hollow face. Nsaka Ne Vampi grabbed him under his arms, and scooped him up. She held him over her shoulder and walked out.
Mossi came over and asked if I was well, but I didn’t answer him. I did nothing until he grabbed my shoulder and said, We go.
Sadogo and Sasabonsam still struggled. I ran down the steps, shouted to the Leopard, and threw him my ax. Sasabonsam looked straight up at me.
“I know the smell,” he said.
Leopard grabbed Sadogo’s belt, pulled himself up on his back, flipped over on his shoulder, and leapt after the beast’s head. Sasabonsam turned to me when Leopard jumped straight for his head, swung the ax, and slashed across his cheek, slicing into the face, cutting right across, as blood and spit splashed into the air. Sasabonsam yelled and clutched his face. Sadogo kicked him down in the water, grabbed his left foot before he could resist, swung, and flung him against the wall. Sasabonsam burst through it and fell outside. Before he fell into the water, two arrows, shot from Fumeli, hit him in the leg. His good wing swept up water, a huge torrent that knocked Fumeli down. Sasabonsam turned to lift himself and turned right into the buffalo, who hooked him with his horns and flung him a hundred paces into the river. He stayed under, as if drowned, or a strong current dragged him away. But then Sasabonsam leapt from the water, flapped his wings, bawling at the damaged one, and lifted himself out of the river. He flapped again and again, yelling each time, and finally flew away, dropping once, falling into the river once, flying low, but still flying away. We left this place quietly, with care, though it did not fall. The boy’s scent vanished again, but I looked over at Nsaka Ne Vampi’s shoulder and there he was.
Back at the house, climbing the stairs all the way up to the sixth floor, with Nsaka Ne Vampi and the child and Mossi ahead of me, the Leopard asked me a question about Sogolon.
“I have no good words for her,” I said. But before I entered the room, somebody said, “Save those good words for me.”
In the center of the sixth floor the King sister, struggling to get up, as if someone kept kicking her down. Bunshi, her eyes shut tight, a dagger, green and almost glowing, stroking her neck and another arm across her chest, pulling her against him.
The Aesi.
TWENTY-ONE
Some truth now, I hope you take it. When you crossed the Mawana witches, I would have gambled on your death. But look. You live. In one way or another,” the Aesi said.
Outside a black flurry turned into birds. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred and one. Birds looking like pigeons, looking like vultures, looking like crows landing on the windowsill and peeking through the window. Black wings flew past the window as well, and I could hear them landing on the roof, the turrets, the ledges, and the ground. Outside marching feet moved closer, but no soldier or mercenary was supposed to be in the city. The King sister sat up, but would not look at me.
“Did you know they came before the world? Even the gods came and saw them and even the gods didn’t dare. All children come from the mother’s will, not from mating with a father. When the world was just a gourd, the witches six were one, and she circled the world until her mouth reached her tail.”
“A spy I knew called you a god, once,” I said.
“I shall bless him, though I am not much of a god.”
“He was not much of a spy.”
Bunshi would not change to water and slip out of his hands. She could not change in the hands of Sadogo either, but there was no scent of enchantment about him
. He was behind me, Sadogo, his metal knuckles clenching tight, iron grating on iron, itching for another fight. Mossi tried to draw his swords but the Aesi pressed the knife closer to Bunshi’s neck.
“You overestimate her value to us,” I said.
“Perhaps. But mine is not the estimation she fears. So if you will not beg me for her life, I will let her beg you.”
The boy, his head on Nsaka Ne Vampi’s shoulder, looked like he was asleep, but when she turned around, his eyes were open, and staring.
“Popele,” Aesi said, whispering to Bunshi in the way of people who want to be overheard. “Your life for the child. I think you are the one who should beg for it. For these brave men and women plus one fool are war-eager and will not listen to me. Popele, you of a thousand years and more, shall we let them see that you too can die? Their ears go deaf at my voice, goddess, and this dagger is so hungry.”
Aesi looked at me.
“Such was a time when I could have used a tracker. Many a time, many a place. Especially one so good at killing.”
“I am not a killer.”
“Yet your road from Malakal to Dolingo to Kongor is paved with corpses. Who am I, do you know?”
“You tried to kill me in a dream once,” I said.
“Are you sure it was me you met in dreams? You still live.”
“You are the extra four limbs of the Spider King.”
He laughed. “Yes, I have heard that is the way you call your King behind his eye. The King is his own, entire. I have no stake.”
“Never met a king who does his own thinking,” Mossi said.
“You do not hail from these lands.”
“I do not.”
“Of course, eastern light. The people who believe in one god, and everything else is either a slave to the god or an evil spirit. Every belief comes in two, which leads to a god two-sided. Vengeful and mad in his ways and takes his fury out on womenfolk. Yours is the silliest of all the gods. No art to his thoughts, no craft to his deeds. I’ve heard that you think men in the constant visitation of ancestors to be mad.”
“Or possessed.”
“What a land. Possession you call bad, spirits you call evil, and love? Love, as your heart calls it, makes men force you to leave. I sniff you and get a whiff of Tracker. More than a whiff, indeed a funk. What shall your father think?”
“I go by my own thoughts,” Mossi said.
“You must be a king. As for him, this little fly, your little king, the one who drools at this woman’s neck, even though he is six years gone in age. Tracker, it has been said you have a nose. Is the shit we smell not his?”
“There is a big piece of black shit in this room, no doubt of that,” I said.
“If you’re going to tell them who you are, tell them who you are,” the King sister said.
She still sat on the floor, still looking weak, as if drained. She finally looked at us.
“This, this Aesi, these four limbs of the Spider King. Tell them about your prophecy. Tell them about how you just appeared in our hearts and minds as someone who was there all along, but no woman or man can remember when you first came,” the King sister said.
“I want what is best for the King,” Aesi said.
“You want what is best for you. For now that is the same as what the King wants. Meanwhile nobody notices that you the same today as you was twenty years ago, and even before that. Call yourself by your name, necromancer. Man of sorcery and wicked art. You are what you are. You build nothing, disrupt everything, destroy everything. You know what he does? He waits until all are asleep, then he jumps through the air or runs under the ground. He goes to covens in caves and rapes babies offered up by mothers. Breeds children with sister upon sister and brother, but they all die. Eater of human flesh. I saw you, Aesi. I saw you as the wild boar, and the crocodile, and the pigeon, and the vulture, and the crow. Your evil will soon eat itself.”
Just out of her reach lay a bag made of rags, tied at the neck with a carving sticking out. A phuungu. A charm, like a nkisi, to protect against witchcraft. She tried to grab it, but her head slammed into the ground and the charm rolled away.
“I want what goes best for the King,” the Aesi said.
“You should want what goes best for the kingdom. Not the same thing,” I said.
“Look at you, noble men and women, and one fool. None of you bear any stake in this room. Some of you have been wounded, some of you have died, but this boy means nothing more than coin to you. Truly, I wondered how women and men could risk limb for a child not their own, but such is money in this age. But now I am bidding you all farewell, for this is a family argument.”
The King sister laughed. “Family? You dare to call yourself family? Did you marry one of my slow cousins in some cave? Will you not tell them your grand plan, king kisser? God butcher. Oh, that one moves you. God butcher. Butcher of gods. Sogolon knew. She told my servant. She said, I go to the temple of Wakadishu. I go to the steps of Mantha. I go north, and east, and west, and I have not felt the presence of the gods. Not one. But that is another of your tricks, is it not, God butcher? Nobody knows what they lost because nobody remembers what they have had. Is this the night where you stop the King just as you have stopped the gods? Is it? Is it?”
A flap of huge wings, we heard it.
“Leave the child and go. Don’t hesitate and set him down gently. Just drop him and go,” the Aesi said.
He locked his eyes on Nsaka Ne Vampi.
“He is your King,” the King sister said.
They saw nothing. But the nothing grabbed the King sister and slapped her left and right. Leopard ran to her, but the nothing kicked him away. He rolled and caught himself right beside me. He crouched again to pounce, but I bent down and touched the back of his neck. The nothing pulled up the King sister and shoved her down on a stool.
“King? This is the King. Have you seen his face? Do you know the taste in his mouth? It is fouler than the swordsman’s shit. This is your King? Shall we call him Khosi, our lion? Get him a kaphoonda for his royal head. Three brass rings for his ankle. We should call players of moondu and matuumba, and all drums. Shall we call xylophone? Shall we call all earth chiefs to come and bow down in red dirt? Shall I pluck a hair from my head and stick it in his? And what is your stake in this, river nymph? Did the false queen seek you? Did you seek the false queen? Did she tell you of how glorious it will be when the King returns to the glorious line of mothers? Oh Mama, I beat my slit drum so that he will tell a secret to my big vagina nkooku maama, kangwaana phenya mbuta. You believed in a bad oracle, King sister. Your ngaanga ngoombu lied to you. Filled your head with wicked gold. You should have called a diviner. Instead you surrounded yourself with women even women have forgotten. Look at him, who you would have as King. He is lower than an it.”
The Aesi pointed the green knife at me.
“My boy will be king,” the King sister said.
“The North already has a King. Have you looked upon your son? How could you, you have never even known your son. Put your gaze on him now. If a demon beast bared a nipple, he would grab it and suck it. You, Tracker, and the pale one, you promised to deliver the boy and you have delivered. What do you wish? Coin? Cowrie shells the weight of your body? This woman and her little river nymph deceived you, how many times? Even now, tell the room true. Do you believe any of their stories? No. Or you would have at least tried to throw that ax. The knife at her neck—if I were to kill her right now you would not even look me in the eye. Sogolon knew not to trust men who had nothing to lose. A pity how she died. I wish I had seen it.”
I heard marching outside, marching that knocked down the doors and came in the house. Mossi could hear it too. He looked up at me and I nodded, hoping it said what I did not know.
“Leave the child here, then go, and I promise when I meet you next, it will be over some dolo, some good soup, and there shall be mirth,” the Aesi said.
“I scarce think there is any mirth in you,” Mossi said.
“I would have loved to talk to you about your belief in your one god some more. I have met so many gods.”
“Met and killed them, God butcher,” the King sister said.
The Aesi laughed. “Your friend the Tracker, he said he did not believe in belief; I saw that too. You think he believes in a butcher of the gods? He would have to believe in gods first. Did you notice, Tracker, that nobody worships anymore? I know you do not believe in gods but you know many who do. Have you not noticed that more and more, the men of the lands are like you, and the women too? You have been around witchmen and fetish priests, but when have you last seen an offering? A sacrifice? A shrine? Women gathered in praise? Fuck the gods, you say. I have heard you. And yes fuck them, this is the age of kings. You don’t believe in belief. I butcher belief. We are the same.”
“I will tell my mother she has one more son. She will laugh,” I said.
“Not with your grandfather’s cock in her mouth she will not.”
My head went red. I grabbed my ax from the Leopard, who growled.
“You must be sad, then, with Sogolon dead and nobody to see through you,” I said.