Lord of Darkness

by Robert Silverberg

  This matter of bearing no children is one of the strangest of their ways. Of course they do engender babes, and carry them to full term, and the women are very fruitful, since the Jaqqas are a lewd nation and constantly perform the act of coition. But their women enjoy none of their children: for as soon as the woman is delivered of her child, it is presently taken from her, and placed in a hole in the earth, and in that dark prison of death the newborn creature, not yet made happy with the light of life, is allowed to perish.

  Their reason for this cruelty is that they will not in their travels be troubled with such cumbersome burdens as babes, nor do they wish to undertake the education of infants. This is most monstrous. I witnessed it myself many times, the digging of the hole, the placing of the babe, all this done with the greatest ease and calm, as if it were the drowning of kittens. I did tax Kinguri with the manifest evil of this, and he said, “But it lets us grow stronger, for we choose only the best for our number, and discard all others.”

  “But since you are so valiant, are not your own children apt to be stronger than those of other tribes, and best suited to become as you are?”

  “That may be, Andubatil, but it may also not happen that way. Great kings do engender feeble princes. Did you not tell me yourself that your King Henry brought forth only sickly sons, that all died in youth, so that your kingdom had to be given over to women?”

  “It can happen so, aye, but it is not the rule. Have you not had sons yourself, of your wives?”

  He looked indifferent. “I have not come to know them. They are of no concern to me.”

  “They are of your get, of your blood, of your valor!”

  “They are only half mine, and who knows what corruption the other half brings? I tell you, Andubatil, these babes are mere insects, that buzz and drone for a day, and are gone.”

  “Nay, nay, nay,” said I, pressing him close. “Strong men with strapping wives do bring forth fine and lusty children, so I believe. And in the murder of your babes you and your fellows have forfeited great strength in your armies, and—”

  “Have care, Andubatil!”

  “Do I transgress?”

  “You transgress in the extreme.”

  “I speak from my heart, though.”

  “I was told by my brother Calandola that your heart was Jaqqa.”

  That did give me a moment’s pause. Jaqqa-hearted, was I, in their eyes? Well, and I had thrown myself most lustily into their festivals, and did ape Jaqqa ways, and now did bear a Jaqqa sort of name: but was my heart truly Jaqqa? In faith, that brought me some amaze, and then some second thought, and I recalled to me the harsh croakings of that white-skinned witch, that demon-eyed madman of a ndundu, that in the city of Loango long ago had moaned and gestured at me and called me “white Jaqqa.” Was his prophecy now fulfilled? Well, and so be it, though this was passing strange to me.

  “And is my heart not Jaqqa then?” I asked Kinguri.

  “So it seemed to my brother, and so it seems also to me: which is why I took you near, and showed my love to you. But am I mistook? Is your heart still white?”

  “I think it is both white and Jaqqa at once,” I said. “I find myself making the voyage between the one life and the other, and taking on new ways, and casting off old ones. But in some things I do find my heart as white as ever. In the matter of the murder of babes—”

  “It is not murder!”

  “I understand the killing of innocents to be murder.”

  “You understand nothing!” cried he most furiously.

  “I think I have some little wisdom.”

  “None! None!”

  There was a blaze in his eye and a froth to his lips. My own brain was heated, and to my tongue there came a crowd of arguments, why it was not right to do as the Jaqqas did with their young. But I caught my breath, and held myself still. For from the fury that was rising upon him, I knew it was the moment to cease plaguing him on this, lest I lose his love entirely, and inflame him into enmity. We had reached our boundary in this discourse, and any crossing of it would be a breach irreparable.

  “I will not press you,” said I.

  “Nay, best that you do not.”

  He still was enraged. And I was yet fevered with the heat of my convictions; but I gave over, I held myself still, and after a time we did grow calm, and restore our amity.

  Never did I open that subject again, even for the sake of hearing what mysterious profundity he could bring forth to justify the slaughter of babes. To see into his mind was like a powerful potion to me, so strange and other were his thoughts, but here I kept the boundary. Peradventure there was no profundity to be found there on this matter anyway, but only bloodlust: for I reminded myself that it might be an error to regard this man as wholly a philosopher with whom I could hold unrestricted discourse of the mind, when in fact I dared not forget that what he was was a savage and a cannibal and a killer who gave no quarter, even though his mind be deep and discerning.

  Kinguri told me that the first of the Jaqqa kings was a chief of his own name, Kinguri, that when he came south did marry a wife named Kulachinga out of one of the local nations. After him came Imbe-Jaqqas that had the names of Kasanje and Kalunga and Ngonga, all of the same original Jaqqa family of the first Kinguri. These presided over this mixture of many tribes that was the Jaqqa nation. Some of the Jaqqa monarchs fell into friendly relations with the Portugals of Kongo and Angola, and did ally themselves with them in certain battles in return for the privilege of crossing territories unhindered. But these alliances came and went like the shadowy events of a dream, and the Portugals never knew whether the Jaqqas were their friend or their mortal enemy, which was how the Jaqqas preferred it to be.

  The Imbe-Jaqqa just before Calandola’s reign was called Elembe, and it was he who conducted the spoiling of the Kongo that led to the great massacres of the last generation, in which so many Portugals and Kongo folk lost their lives. Calandola was a page unto this Elembe, and may also have been his son, for I think the Imbe-Jaqqas do spare some of their own offspring from the general rule of destruction. I believe Calandola did overthrow Elembe at some time, much as the god Jove did overthrow his father in a mighty revolution upon Mount Olympus. But this again was a matter that was perilous to explore, and I did not probe deeply in my talks with Kinguri on this, when I felt him withdrawing and sealing himself off. Certain it is that in recent years Calandola was the utter master of the Jaqqas, and the sole architect of their exploits.

  They have no feitissos, or idols. That they leave to the other tribes. They do have gods—is there a nation on earth that does not?—but images are not kept by them.

  Their gods are two, so far as I know, but I cannot tell you their names, if names they have. One they refer to as “the mother,” by which they mean the earth itself, our sphere of habitation: they do hold her sacred, and abhor any kind of profaning of her wholeness, such as mining or even farming.

  Thus it is that they will not plough the earth, and without ploughing it is difficult indeed to raise crops, even in this most fertile honeyed land of Africa. (I think also the Jaqqas abjure ploughing because that they regard farming as fit only for humble peasant folk and serfs, and they look upon themselves as a race of kings; that is, it is more pride than piety that leads them to seize the produce of others and raise none of their own.) The sole violation of the mother earth that they will countenance is the digging of holes for burial, either of children at birth, or the dead of the tribe. But this they see, not as a profaning of the mother, but merely as a returning of her children to her.

  Their other god is a dark mokisso or spirit that is the force of destruction, the whirlwind of warfare and killing. But also is he the god of creation, the quickener of life in the world.

  This union of destruction and creation was explained me by the witch Kakula-banga, who had appointed himself my ghostly father in this tribe. “In the beginning,” he said, “there was only the mother, and she was empty and shining, like an uncarv
en piece of stone, pure, void, whole. But although she was perfect, she did not feel complete: so she did stir in her sleep, and roll about, and flail from side to side, until she awakened a mighty wind, which had mokisso in it. And this wind did come roaring down across the face of the land, and cut great gouges in it, which were the valleys and lake-beds, and threw up great ramparts, which were the mountains. And round and round the mother did the mokisso-wind blow, ever more fiercely and deeply. Until at last the wind did set seed inside her, and make her fertile, and quicken the first life. Out from her caverns in time came the first man, and the first woman, and the other creatures each in their turn, and so the world was peopled by the union of the whirlwind and the mother. And when the time comes, it will be destroyed in the same way.”

  “When will that wind rise?” I asked.

  And Kakula-banga said, “It has already risen, O Andubatil Jaqqa Kimana Kyeer. For the Imbe-Calandola has the summoning of that wind in his hands, and he has summoned it!”

  I do believe that this god of storm is in fact the Devil, though the Jaqqas do not know our idea of the Devil as the adversary of God, but rather worship him as a spirit who is a god himself, and worthy of the highest admiration. Yet as always in Jaqqa thought creation and destruction are entwined, and killing is a form of giving life, and I suppose a god can be a devil, too, and quicken the seed of the great mother at the same time that he does great injury to her perfection.

  Whenever the great Jaqqa Calandola did undertake any large enterprise against the inhabitants of any country, he first invariably made a sacrifice to his stormy god the Devil, in the morning, before the sun arose. He would sit upon a stool, having upon each side of him a man-witch: then he had forty or fifty women which stood round him, holding in each hand a zevvera-tail, wherewith they did flourish and sing. Behind them were great store of drums and mpungas and other instruments loudly playing. In the midst of everything was a great fire; upon the fire an earthen pot of white powders, wherewith the men-witches did paint him on the forehead, temples, athwart the breast and belly, and on one cheek and the other, with long ceremonies and spells and enchantments. This would continue until the sun was down: thus did they conjure all the day long.

  Then at night the witches brought to the Imbe-Jaqqa his cassengula, which is a weapon like a hatchet of great size of shining black metal with fair gleaming crystal set into its handle. This they put into his hands, and bade him be strong against his enemies: for his mokisso is with him, and victory shall be his. And presently there was a man-child brought, which forthwith he would kill with a blow of the cassengula, a weapon too heavy for most men to lift. Then usually were four men brought before him, slaves or prisoners: two whereof he would presently strike and kill in the same way, and the other two to be taken outside the Jaqqa camp and slain there by the man-witches.

  Here I was in the first weeks of my stay among the Jaqqas always ordered to go away by the witches, for I believe they did not want a Christian to see a ceremony at which the Devil did appear. Then certain most holy rites took place. And presently after, Calandola did command five cows to be killed within the fort, and five without the fort, and likewise as many goats, and as many dogs, and the blood of them was sprinkled in the fire, and their bodies were eaten with great feasting and triumph. And also too they did eat the bodies of the men and the man-child that they had sacrificed.

  Later, when the wind was in my sails and it had carried me much deeper on my voyage into the Jaqqa commonwealth, they decided I was no longer a Christian, and could be indoctrinated into their most secret rites. And so it was done, as I will tell in its rightful place. But never once, though I witnessed all the holiest of their holies, did ever I see the Devil himself, unless that I saw him and did not know him by his face. But I do doubt that he was truly there.

  Kinguri did tell me, as we sat in their camp on the moist black earth beneath the great spreading arms of an ollicondi tree, of the many wonders that he had seen through his marchings across these lands. He spoke of a beast called the empalanga, which is in bigness and shape like oxen, save that they hold their neck and head aloft, and have their horns broad and crooked, three hand-breadths long, divided into knots, and sharp at the end, whereof they might make very fair cornets to sound withal. I saw none of these creatures, but I think they are harder to find than the Devil, since he is everywhere around and they are shy and rare.

  Then also he told me of the great water-adder called the naumri, a serpent that goes forth of the water and gets itself up upon the boughs and branches of trees, and there watches the cattle that feed thereabouts. Which when they are come near unto it, presently it falls upon them, and winds itself in many twines about them, and claps his tail on their hinder parts: and so it straineth them, and bites so many holes in them, that at last it killeth them. And then it draws them into some solitary place where it devours them at pleasure, skin, horns, hoofs, and all.

  Upon hearing this tale I did tell Kinguri of the coccodrillo at Loango that had eaten the whole alibamba of eight slaves, at which he laughed and said, “Nay, it is impossible for one coccodrillo to hold so many!” When I swore I had seen the monster cut open myself, he at first grew angry, and gave me the lie, and I thought would strike at me with the flat of his sword. But then he relented, and later I heard him telling the tale to Imbe Calandola, except that when it was told this time it was eleven slaves that the coccodrillo had devoured, not a mere eight.

  From Kinguri I learned of the great bird called the estridge, taller than a man, and with feet that can kill a man with a single kick. It does not fly, because of its immense size. And he told me of certain other strange creatures, which being as big as rams, have wings like dragons, with long tails, and divers rows of teeth, and feed upon raw flesh. Their color is blue and green, their skins bepainted like scales; and two legs they have, but no more. I had heard of these dragons in Mofarigosat’s town, that some were worshipped by the blacks and kept for a wonder in special cages. No dragons did I ever see, neither. But Kinguri promised he would show them to me when we were near some, a promise that he did not keep.

  I could tell you many more tales I had from Kinguri, and very likely I shall. For he was a man much traveled and very shrewd; and as we talked often, he came to master the Portugal tongue, and I the Jaqqa tongue, and also we both spoke the Bakongo language, so that we had rich store of words between us and could communicate most easily and well.

  Kinguri asked me much about life in Europe, that was of keen interest to him: our kings and our churches, and our way of dress, and our beliefs about the size and shape of the world, and much much else. In this I was often hard pressed to make reply to him, for though I am an educated man in my way, I had not held a book in my hand since leaving England, and much that I had been taught was forgotten to me now over so many years. Nor were his questions easy ones, since that he probed right to the heart of our mysteries, asking such as, Why did we use gold for our money and not iron, when iron was the more sturdy and useful metal? And, Why did we build great stone houses in which to worship our god, when God is everywhere? And, Why had our god created the first man and the first woman pure and innocent, and then let the Devil tempt them with sin, and then punish Eve and Adam with shame and death, when it would have been easier and more just to create them resistant to such temptation, while He was taking the trouble to bring them into existence? All this did I answer, more or less, but inasmuch as these were problems with which I found some difficulty myself, I think I did not give the Imbe-Jaqqa’s brother great satisfaction by the firmness of my reasoning.

  I had one question for Kinguri of a similarly deep sort, that was, To what purpose did the Jaqqas travel up and down this land of Africa, consuming all that lay in their path? What fury drove them, what hunger for destruction? To this, Kinguri made no reply for a great long while, so that I feared I had angered him by impertinence; his eyes seemed to turn inward, and he brooded in a chill and far distant way. Then at last he did reply, “I w
ill not answer this. You must ask it of the Imbe-Jaqqa, who is our guide and master in these matters.”

  In those days I did not readily approach Calandola for such conversation. He held himself apart from the camp except at feasting-time, and his presence in it was like that of some smouldering volcano, a huge terrible Vesuvio that might erupt at any instant, hurling fiery rivers of lava over those nearby. So I let that question go by, thinking that perhaps it was a fool’s question, inasmuch that the Jaqqas might merely do their killing and destruction out of the sheer joyous love for harm, and nothing underlying. Yet I suspected otherwise. In my study of the world it has seemed to me that there are very few nations that practice mere harm for harm’s sake, but rather always do have some reason for their deeds, that to themselves seems to be the purest light of righteousness sublime.

  And so it was with the Jaqqas. But I did not learn that until some while afterward.

  We were done now with the spoiling of Cashindcabar, and moved onward toward the north and the east. The Imbe-Jaqqa’s plan now took him across a river called Longa, and toward the town of Kalungu, that lies on the edge of the province of Tondo. Here we stood as it were between two worlds. For Kalungu is a place most fertile, and always tilled and full of grain, and is all a fine plain very level and rich, with great store of honey. But beyond it is that evil desert in which the Portugals underwent their massacre at the hands of Kafuche Kambara, who was also a great enemy of the Jaqqas. We did camp outside Kalungu for some time, while Calandola strived to decide whether to go inward upon that pleasant city, or to strike upward upon Kafuche Kambara. In this time of indecision he did hold many ceremonies in honor of the Devil, and feast greatly, and seek the Devil’s counsel.