Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Dark Star Trilogy)

by Marlon James

  “Sogolon? What good are the eyes of an old moon witch when the eyes of a hundred angry spirits are upon her? You did not sleep the night you rode from Kongor, so someone must have told you that I visit dreams.”

  “I did not sleep.”

  “I know. But you, behind him, you slept deeper than a deaf child.”

  He pointed his finger at the Ogo. Sadogo looked at us, at his hands, out the window, back at himself, as if he heard something but not words.

  “An Ogo’s dream jungle is so wide, so rich, so open to possibility. Sometimes he was blind to me traveling in his head, opening one eye when he slept. Sometimes he fought me in dream. Did he not punch a hole in that ship? Sometimes from his mouth came what I said in his sleep, and sometimes people heard. Is that not so, dear Ogo? Pity your friends here did not share as much with you as I would have liked, or I would have known your plans in Dolingo. Maybe they did not trust the giant?”

  Sadogo growled, looking around for the somebody the Aesi might be speaking of.

  “And what I saw through your eyes. What I heard through your ears. Your friends, this might give them laughter. Was even a moon gone when I spoke through your mouth? You will not remember. I spoke and you spoke and that man, that old man was on the roof and he heard you. Me. I am who he heard, but you, dear Ogo, you are the one who grabbed the man, crushed his throat so he could not scream, and with your dear hands you threw him off the roof.”

  I knew Sadogo would look to see who watched him. I did not look. Sadogo squeezed his knuckles so tight I heard the iron bend. The Leopard did not turn around. Mossi did.

  “He is the father of lies, Sadogo,” Mossi said.

  “Lies? What is one more death to the Ogo? At least he didn’t kill that Zogbanu slave girl by letting her sit on his little ogo. But she sat on it many times in his daytime dreaming. What a noise she was making in your dream jungle. Made me shoot seed twice myself. But this Ogo here, his cum almost burst through the roof. But which was the wilder dream, you inside her or you calling her wife? You thinking you will make a half Ogo? I was there. I was there when—”

  “Do not listen, Sadogo,” Mossi said.

  “Do not interrupt. Wondering if she could ever love an Ogo, are you the first who is more than beast?”

  “He’s trying to provoke you, Sadogo. He would not make you angry if he didn’t have a plan,” Mossi said.

  Sadogo growled. I turned to face him, but my gaze landed on the boy on Nsaka Ne Vampi’s shoulder, his mouth open wide as if he was going to bite her, but he closed his mouth when he saw me looking. His eyes, wide open and blank, so black, almost blue.

  “Provoke? If I wanted to provoke him would I not have said half giant?” the Aesi said.

  Sadogo bellowed. I spun around to see him punch the wall. He squeezed his knuckles and stamped after the Aesi but right then the dark turned on him, jumped out from the shadows, grabbed his limbs as he yelled, and pulled him out of the room. Leopard jumped right for the King sister and bit into the nothing that still rested on her shoulder. Red spurted in his mouth. The nothing screamed.

  “Fuck the gods indeed,” the Aesi said, and slashed Bunshi’s throat. She fell.

  Mossi pulled both swords and ran towards him. I threw my ax. A wind whipped up, blew Mossi hard against the wall, and sent the ax flying back to my face, but the iron could not touch me and the ax flew by. Nsaka Ne Vampi ran out with the child, and the King sister wailed. The Aesi turned to chase Nsaka Ne Vampi, but stopped quick and caught an arrow with his left hand, stopping it from his face. With his right he caught another. His hands full, the third and fourth shot straight into his forehead. I saw Fumeli, his bow still pulled, two arrows between his fingers. The Aesi fell back and crashed into the floor, the arrows flag-posts in his forehead. The nothing lost his spell and died a Tokoloshe. The birds, flapping and squawking, flew away from the window.

  “We must go,” Leopard said to the King sister.

  He grabbed her hand and yanked her away. I could hear Sadogo fighting the invisible monsters and crashing through one wall and then another. I stared at the Aesi lying there and thought not of him, but of Omoluzu, who always attacked from above, not behind. I ran to Sadogo. Killing the Aesi dropped his invisible enchantment. All black and tarlike, but not Omoluzu. Red eyes, but not like Sasabonsam. Shadow creatures who could still break, like the neck that Sadogo just snapped. I ran into the dark, swinging my ax through shadow, but it felt like chopping flesh and chunking bone. Two of the shadowings jumped me, one kicking me in the chest and one trying to stomp me down. I pulled my knife and rammed it right up where his balls would be. He squealed. Or she. On the floor I swung the ax and chopped off toe after toe, then jumped back up. The shadowings ran up and down the Ogo, enraging him so much that he grabbed at the dark, crushing a head with his right hand, breaking a neck with his left, and stomping two so hard into the floor that he kicked a hole right through it. I rolled out of the shadows and a hand grabbed my ankle. I chopped it off.

  “Sadogo!”

  They crawled all over him. As he pulled off one, another came. They climbed and crawled all over him so that all but his head vanished. He looked over at me, his eyebrows raised, his eyes lost. I stared at him, trying to hold him with just a look. I rose and gripped my ax, but he closed his eyes slow, opened them and looked at me again. I couldn’t read his eyes. Then a shadow creature crawled over his face.

  “Sadogo,” I said.

  He stomped, stomped, and stomped until he cracked the floor wider open and, with the shadow creatures grabbing him, fell through. I heard one crash the floor, then another, and another, and another and another. Then nothing. I went to the hole and looked down, but saw hole after hole after hole, then darkness. At the foot of the final steps, the door ahead, I looked over to the pile of dirt, bricks, dust, and black shadow, and something that glimmered just a little. His iron glove. Sadogo. He could never face such a life of knowing he killed the old man with such wickedness, even if it was not him. Not truly. I stood there, looking, waiting, not hoping, but waiting all the same, but nothing moved. I knew if anything moved it would be something from the black. And soon.

  Mossi ran in shouting something about people and birds. I didn’t hear him. I looked over into the dark, waiting.

  Mossi touched my cheek and turned my head to his face.

  “We must go,” he said.

  Outside people from the city stood about two hundred paces away and watched us. Nsaka Ne Vampi and the King sister mounted horses, the Leopard and Fumeli shared one. The King sister placed the boy in front of her and held him with one hand, the reins in the other. The people stood back. Birds bunched, thick in the sky, then flew apart, then came together again.

  “Leopard, look up. Are they possessed?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. The Aesi is dead.”

  “I do not see any weapons,” Mossi said.

  “We also stole these horses,” the Leopard said.

  Mossi mounted his horse and pulled me up. The crowd made a noise and charged after us. The King sister galloped off, not waiting. Nsaka Ne Vampi turned to us and, riding off, shouted, “Ride! Fools.”

  We took off as the crowd starting flinging rocks. I lost the boy’s smell, even though I could still see the King sister.

  “Where are we going?” he said.

  “The Mweru,” I said.

  The crowd kept chasing us even as we rode away, down to the border road and then west, then south, along the Gallunkube/Matyube, which took us west again until we saw the docks and the shore. We continued south and did not stop until the horses crossed the canal and took us out of the city. Above, a flock of birds followed us. They followed us even as we rode through forest and grassland, and as the sky started changing colour of day. Until we could no longer see Kongor. Right above us some dove for our heads. Pigeons. Nsaka Ne Vampi yelled and the King sister shouted, Move! Nsaka Ne Vampi led her through a patch of trees, which blocked the birds, but they started diving again as soon as
we were out of the patch.

  Ahead of us was something white and moving, either clouds or dust. The King sister rode straight for it and we followed. The birds dove at us one more time. One flew straight into Mossi’s head. He yelled for me to get it out so I yanked it and threw it away. Fumeli slapped away birds with his bow, as the Leopard rode hot after the two women. The buffalo charged on past us. We rode so hard that it was not until we were in the mist—for it was a mist—that I noticed the birds did not follow. I had no name for the smell. Not a stench, but not a fragrance either. Maybe something like when clouds are fat with rain and lightning has scorched them. We rode to a stop beside the King sister—a good thing too, for she stopped at the steep drop of a cliff. Mossi nudged me to dismount. Below us, but still a distance away, lay those lands, waiting on any fool to enter it.

  “Sogolon said take him to the Mweru,” the King sister said. “He would be safe from all magic and white science in the Mweru. In that, at least, we can trust her.”

  She said it in a way that I could not tell if she was telling or asking. I turned to her and saw her looking at me.

  “Trust the gods,” I said.

  She pointed to the trail leading down, laughed, and rode off without saying anything of gratitude. I could not smell the boy even when I looked at him. As they rode off his smell finally came to me, then it vanished again. Did not fade, but vanished. Nsaka Ne Vampi turned to me, nodded, then rode off back to Kongor.

  “Leopard,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “What will she be riding back to, with the Ipundulu dead?”

  “I don’t know, Tracker. Whatever it is, it will not be what she wants …. So, Tracker.”

  “Yes?”

  “The ten and nine doors. Was there a map? Did you see one?”

  “We both saw one,” Mossi said.

  “From here to Gangatom we would have to cross a river to Mitu, ride around the Darklands, cut through the long rain forest, and follow two sisters river west. That is at least ten and eight days and that’s not counting pirates, Ku warriors, and this King’s army and mercenaries already plundering the river folk,” I said.

  “What about the doors?” Leopard said.

  “We would have to sail against current to Nigiki.”

  “You wish us go back past Dolingo?” Mossi said, loud enough but clearly to only me.

  “Six days to Nigiki if we go by river. Take the door at Nigiki and we are in the Hills of Enchantment, three days from Gangatom.”

  “That’s nine days,” the Leopard said. “But Nigiki is South Kingdom, Tracker. Catch us they will, and kill us as spies before we even get to that door.”

  “Not if we move with a hush.”

  “Quiet? Us four?”

  “Darklands to Kongor, Kongor to Dolingo. We can only go one way,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Take care,” I said to everyone. “Slip in like thieves, slip out before anyone, even the night, knows.”

  “To the river,” the Leopard said.

  Fumeli kicked the horse and they galloped off. I turned back to look at the Mweru. In the dark, with the sky a rich blue, all I could see were shadows. Hills rising upward, too smooth and precise. Or towers, or things left behind by giants who practiced wicked arts before man.

  “Sadogo,” I said to Mossi. “I loved that giant, even if he went mad when one called him so. If I had fallen asleep, had you let me, I would have been the one to throw that old man from the roof. Do you know how much it pained him to kill? He told me of all his killings one night. Every single one, for his memory was a curse. It took us right into the break of morning. Most of the killings were no fault of his—an executioner’s job is still but a job, no worse than the man who increases taxes by the year.”

  They came, the tears. I could hear myself bawl and was shocked at it. What kind of dawn was this? Mossi stood by me, silent, waiting. He put his hands on my shoulder until I stopped.

  “Poor Ogo. He was the only—”

  “Only?”

  I tried to smile. Mossi squeezed my neck with a soft hand, and I leaned into it. He wiped my cheek and brought my forehead to his. He kissed me on the lips, and I searched for his tongue with mine.

  “All your cuts are open again,” I said.

  “You’ll be saying I’m ugly next.”

  “These children will not want me.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Fuck the gods, Mossi.”

  “But they will never need you more,” he said, mounting the horse and pulling me up behind him. The horse broke into a trot, then a full gallop. I wanted to look back, but did not. I didn’t want to look ahead either, so I rested my head on Mossi’s back. Behind us, light shone ahead as if it came from the Mweru, but it was just the break of daylight.

  TWENTY-TWO

  And that is all and all is truth, great inquisitor. You wanted a tale, did you not? From the dawn of it to the dusk of it, and such is the tale I have given you. What you wanted was testimony, but what you really wanted was story, is it not true? Now you sound like men I have heard of, men coming from the West for they heard of slave flesh, men who ask, Is this true? When we find this, shall we seek no more? It is truth as you call it, truth in entire? What is truth when it always expands and shrinks? Truth is just another story. And now you will ask me again of Mitu. I don’t know who you hope to find there. Who are you, how dare you say what I had was not family? You, who try to make one with a ten-year-old.

  Oh, you have nothing to say. You will push me no further.

  Yes, it is as you say, I was in Mitu for four years and five moons. Four years from when we left the boy in the Mweru. I was there when this rumor of war turned into a real war. What happened there is something you can ask the gods. Ask them why your South has not been winning this war, but neither the North.

  The child is dead. There is nothing else to know. Otherwise, ask the child.

  Oh you have nothing left to ask? Is this where we part?

  What is this? Who comes in this room?

  No, I do not know this man. I have never seen his back or his face.

  Don’t ask me if I recognize you. I do not know you.

  And you, inquisitor, you give him a seat. Yes, I can see he is a griot. Do you think he brought the kora to sell it? Why would this be the time for praise song?

  It is a griot with a song about me.

  There are no songs about me.

  Yes, I know what I said before, I was the one who said it. That was a boast—who am I that I would be in any song? Which griot makes a song before you pay them? Fine, let him sing; it is nothing to me. Nothing he sings I will know. So sing.

  Thunder god mystic brother

  blessed with tongue, and the gift of kora.

  It is I, Ikede, son of Akede,

  I was the griot that lived in the monkeybread tree.

  I been walking many days and many nights, when across it I come,

  the tree near a river

  I climb up and hear the parrot, and the crow, and the baboon

  I hear children

  laughing, screaming, fighting, making gods hush

  and there up top lie a man on a rug.

  What kind of man is this?

  not like any man in Weme Witu, Omororo, or even Mitu.

  And he said,

  are you looking for beauty?

  I said I think I found it

  And hark, the man laugh and he say

  the women of Mitu find me so ugly,

  when I take the children to the markets they say

  Look at that ugly family, look at those wretched beasts,

  but that one khita, ngoombu, haamba he have hair like a horse.

  But I say, beautiful wise bountiful women

  plump in bosom and wide in smile

  I am not a zombi, I am pretty like kaolin clay

  and they laugh so hard, they give me doro beer and play in my hair

  and I tell you, in none of these things I fi
nd any offense.

  And I say to him

  This tree, do you live in it?

  He say, There is no you, only we and we are a strange house.

  Stay with us as long as you wish.

  When I climb through a hole and sit in the spot

  I see he coming, bringing back meat

  I say, Who is the man so sour with the eye of a wolf?

  Who curse him so?

  But children little, children big, children who is but air

  run down the tree and stampede him

  and don’t care that he cursing would scare the owl.

  And they jump up on him and sit on his head, and rest under his arm

  And I thinking these children have big feelings for this man,

  and the sour face gone.

  And the Wolf Eye climb up the top and stop when he see me,

  and keep climbing.

  And when he reach the top, he see the other man,

  and they put lips together, and open their mouths,

  I know.

  The one with the wolf eye, he is the one

  who says, The night is getting old, why are you not sleeping?

  The sun is in the sky, why are you not waking?

  Food is ready

  when are you going to eat it?

  Did the gods curse me and make me a mother?

  No he blessed me and made you my wife,

  the one called Mossi say,

  and the children laugh, and the Wolf Eye scowl

  And scowl, and scowl, and scowl into a laugh.

  I was there, I see it.

  And I see it when they chase all the children out and say go,

  go to the river now,

  and stay ’til the sun start to shift

  And when they all gone, they think I gone too

  For Mossi speak the Wolf Eye own tongue

  Se ge yi ye do bo, he say

  Se ge yi ye do bo

  Let us love each other

  For they two, they grab each other and kiss lip

  then kiss tongue,

  then kiss neck and nipple

  and lower.

  And one was the woman, and one was the man,

  and both was the woman, and both was the man,