Lord of Darkness

by Robert Silverberg

  Yet had I no choice. If I failed to come forth, I would proclaim myself traitor and coward, and this was a nation that knew not mercy.

  So I put the best face on things, and marched me forward, and cried out to the Imbe-Jaqqa, proclaiming my loyalty to him, and trusted to God to bring me through this ordeal as He had carried me through so many others. And the witch Kakula-banga did lift the glowing hatchet, and bring it close, pressing his scarred and wrinkled face upon me and staring into mine eyes with his one blazing brilliant eye. I could not tell if he were mocking me or giving me assurance that all was well, so strange and intense was the look of that eye.

  He passed the hatchet-head near enough to me so that I felt its heat on my naked thigh, and did smell the burnt smell of the fine hairs that sprout on my skin. Throughout which, I did compel myself to smile securely and stretch out my arms, as though for all the world I was being given some great new honor, some Jaqqa dukedom.

  Then the hatchet passed from me, and still I stood for an instant, not realizing the ordeal was over for me and I was unharmed: and I at length eased my stiff pose and joined those who had succeeded in the test, to drink some palm-wine with them.

  “Ah, I had no doubts of you, brother,” said Kinguri, laughing.

  Thus it went, man after man, and no one of them being touched by the heat. Which left me thinking that the ordeal was a mere hollow mummery, done to amuse the Imbe-Jaqqa. But then a certain Nbande, a deep-chested warrior of the second rank, with a dry and sullen manner about him, had his turn in the line; and when the hatchet came to him he howled and clutched his leg, which was singed and well-nigh cooked in a great red patch. This man Nbande then did fall to his knees and implore Calandola, claiming that this singeing was some mistake and that he stood higher than any man for love of the Imbe-Jaqqa, but it was no use, for justice was swift, and five or six of the Jaqqa lords did stick him with their lances, and cut the life from him.

  “It is no surprise,” said Kinguri beside me. “He was ever untrustworthy, that one.”

  That night the Jaqqas did feast on the flesh of the traitor Nbande, with many lewd remarks about the dead man’s wickedness; and the wives of Nbande, five of them, were brought forth weeping, and were offered as concubines to several of the Jaqqa high ones. Bangala had him one, and Paivaga chose a woman also, and old Zimbo took two; but I declined when they offered me the last, and she was taken by Ngonga. Afterward there was a wrestling, between Paivaga, the newest of the high lords, and Kaimba. This was done most gracefully, with many a fall made to look like a simple feint, and even when they did much harm to one another, they did it without crying out by the injured man, but only delicate incatchings of the breath. Paivaga was proclaimed the victor, and he threw his arm most warmly over Kaimba. This Jaqqa wrestling, I thought, was one of the most beautiful things about these people. When the match was done, they called for others to come forth, and some looked toward me.

  But I was still sore from my blooding with Kinguri, and the injuries done me by Machimba-lombo had not altogether healed, either. Nor were my spirits so high that I welcomed this exuberance, for the ordeal trial had darkened my soul some, and the slaying of the man Nbande. I declined the wrestling-match, saying I was not ready for it, and sat back, somber somewhat. I thanked God for my narrow escape, thinking, This might be my flesh that is being eaten in banquet this evening, had the heat raised my skin. And it might be my wife Kulachinga who was offered about for the pleasure of others. And I saw, that among these man-eaters one lived always on the edge of the sword.

  SIX

  THERE WERE trials of other sorts on the days that followed. These were not large spectacles for the sake of demonstrating loyalty to Calandola, but rather the settling of disputes between one Jaqqa and another. For they were in sooth a quarrelsome and contentious lot. A way they had of dealing with such disputes, that seemed most strange to me, was the trial by sea-shells, which occurred between the Jaqqas Mbula and Matadi, when they quarreled over the ownership of a fine sword. Kinguri did summon both to appear before him, and when they were come he fixed to each of their foreheads a grand yellow and purple sea-shell, and at the same time commanded them to bow down their heads. The shell did stick to the forehead of Mbula, but fell from that of Matadi, and he was taken for the liar.

  Another was the trial by boiling water, the which I saw upon a dispute concerning possession of a woman, that two men both claimed as his own captive wench. Here each of them took an oath, the oath nole fianzumdu it was called, and then a wizard did heat an iron red hot, and quench it in a gourd of water. This boiling water was immediately given to the two who took the oath. One swallowed it without labor, the other could not easily get it down: and the woman was awarded to the first.

  Also did I see the trial by poison again, that was here practiced with the fruit of a certain palm called embá, which yields much oil. Here, one Jaqqa had accused another of a treachery toward Calandola, that is, even planning the Imbe-Jaqqa’s murder. “This I greatly deny,” the accused man cried, and such a clamor burst out between them that they were taken up for the ordeal. Then were all the great Jaqqas called together, and a bowl of the embá fruit was brought to Calandola, who held it on high. The Imbe-Jaqqa then did have one of his man-witches select a fruit from the bowl, and bite of it himself, to show that it was harmless and innocent. After which, three other fruits were chosen, and into one of them a poison was injected by means of a long thorn. Then the poisoned one was mixed with the other two, and the bowl was offered, after certain prayers by the wizard, to the two Jaqqas.

  The accuser chose first, and he did bite a fruit and find it harmless. That one was thrown away, and a new fruit from the bowl was added, so that the second man might have the same risk of one out of three. He took his bite, and instantly began to swell at his throat, and to choke and make horrid gurgling sounds. And within three moments he had fallen down dead.

  “Thus die all traitors,” said Imbe Calandola, and the body was carried away.

  All this I found most sinister and disagreeable, for I could not see how justice was discovered with hot irons and poisoned fruits and the like. I reminded me that even in England we had known the trial by ordeal, such as the carrying of red-hot irons, or the ordeal by combat. But all of that had been abolished long ago, in the reign of Henry III or even before him, as something not worthy of a civilized people: except only the trial of witches by ducking them in a pond, for it is known that a witch cannot sink in water, which will always cast her up. But that applies only to witches, who are a special case, and not to ordinary matters at law.

  After these trials, there was some quiet among the Jaqqas for a time. We did gather our strength once again to make our long-postponed onslaught against Makellacolonge, but at the last instant Imbe Calandola decided once more against it, saying the omens were not right. What fear he had of attacking that lord, I never knew, and peradventure neither did he. But we closed our camp, having never made battle from it, and marched to the westward again.

  Coming along the River Kwanza once more, we reached the city of a lord that is called Shillambansa, uncle to the King of Angola. We burnt his chief town, which was after their fashion very sumptuously builded. This place was very pleasant and fruitful. Here we found great store of wild peacocks, that were everywhere about. Also was there great store of tame ones. In the middle of the town was the grave of the old lord Shillambansa, father to the present one, and there were an hundred tame peacocks on his grave-site, that he had provided for an offering to his mokisso. These birds were called Njilo mokisso, that is, the Devil’s or Idol’s Birds, and were accounted as holy things. He had great store of copper, cloth, and many other things laid upon his grave, which is the order of that country.

  By command of Imbe Calandola we touched none of the Njilo mokisso birds, nor did we injure the goods on the old king’s grave. In this I had me in mind of a certain other time when a Portugal had not hesitated to plunder the dead: but a Jaqqa had more respect for
the departed, or more fear of his mokisso, one or other.

  The town itself we did destroy utterly, and of the wild peacocks we captured many, the tail-feathers of which we plucked as ornaments.

  In the festival to celebrate the sacking of Shillambansa the palm-wine did flow most freely, and we danced and ate and greatly rejoiced ourselves. It seemed as though the time of the trials by ordeal was well behind us. To Kinguri, as we sat passing the cup one to the other, I said, “Now there is peace among the Jaqqas. It seemed a good war was all that was needed, is that not so?”

  “Ah,” he said, “war is always a delight to us. But there will be more trouble, I think.”

  “And more trials?”

  “More trials. Always more trials.”

  “They are so strange to me, so different from our English way.”

  “And what way is that?” Kinguri asked.

  “Why, that the accused is put forth before a judge and a jury, that are picked from among the citizenry at large, and they hear the evidence, and decide the rights and wrongs by vote.”

  This did startle him. “Why, then, is anyone at all allowed to serve on these juries?”

  “Anyone worthy. That is, he must be a man, and neither low nor base. But we are most of us called out to serve, and listen and weigh the tale, and make our decision.”

  “But how then can the king be certain of the result?”

  I did not understand. “He is not,” I said. “First the rights and the wrongs must be discerned, by examination of what has befallen, and testimony of witnesses, and the like.”

  Kinguri shook his head. Plainly he was astonished. “That is no way,” he said. “It is madness. There is no government, where justice is left to chance.”

  “Not to chance, but to investigation.”

  “It is the same thing,” said he. “For the king has no voice in the outcome, and he is not king if he cannot rule his people.”

  Though I was well gone in my cups, I tried some several times more to explain how justice derives from the facts of the case, and not from the king’s wishes. But this seemed stranger and stranger to Kinguri the more ways I expressed it. And finally, being deep in his cups himself, he did impart to me certain truths about the workings of the Jaqqa system of trial, that did make very much clear to me that had been obscure before. For I had been fool enough to think there was some witchcraft involved upon it—if ever there was a place where witchcraft could thrive, and magics of all kinds, it was among these Jaqqas—but, as I had in part already guessed, there was a much more ordinary scaffolding to these ordeals.

  It was not justice that the trials served, he said, so much as it was the overarching will of Calandola, that shaped all the destiny of the Jaqqa nation. In the general trials of loyalty, those suspected of being unloyal were chosen aforehand by Calandola; and the wizards, Kinguri declared to me, were put on notice to deal with those men. And then it was done by sleight of hand that the hatchet is put closer to the skin of the victim than of any others, and held there longer, so that he alone is burned, though it is made to seem that all are having equal treatment. So justice becomes an instrument of policy by the Imbe-Jaqqa, who pretends that it is divine will speaking, but it is merely his own plotting. To Kinguri this seemed a most wise way of maintaining order.

  “And the trial by shells,” I said, “is there some special trickery to that as well?”

  “Trickery? Who speaks of trickery? I speak of assuring that a proper verdict is reached.”

  “It is all the same,” said I wearily.

  “In the case you witnessed, I knew whose sword that was, and who was the false claimant. We all of us did know. But we must make the outcome seem a holy decree. Look you, Andubatil: there is a special way of fixing these shells to the forehead, with a little twist of the hand, so that it will stick there a moment, while the other man’s falls off. This did I do, giving that twist to one, stinting it to the other that was the liar.”

  “So I wondered,” said I.

  I did not ask him about the trial by boiling water, for I thought I understood that one through my own reasoning: since that it sometimes happens that by apprehension alone a man is unable to swallow, it can be that guilt will close the throat of one petitioner but not the other, who is the innocent one. And I saw no way that that could be arranged aforetimes by the judge, so perhaps in this instance Jaqqa justice provided true justice.

  “And the poisoned palm-fruit?” I said. “How is that done?”

  Kinguri laughed. “Why, it is simplicity itself. In the saying of the prayers over the bowl, the nganga does conceal palm-fruits in his fingers, and move them about very quickly and cunningly. So that when he offers the bowl to the accuser, all three of the fruits are free of poison, for the nganga has taken the poisoned one away. Then when he gives the bowl to the accused one, he drops back in the poisoned one, and secretly puts two more poisoned ones in the place of the harmless ones. Thus all three are deadly, and there is no unsureness of the outcome.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Simplicity itself, as you say.”

  “Indeed. Is it not?”

  “But why does anyone submit to these trials, knowing that the result is foredoomed, and not flee at once?”

  Kinguri, looking troubled, replied in a dark voice, “But they do not know what I have told you.”

  “Ah.”

  “You understand, these are high secrets of the Imbe-Jaqqa, that I have told you because you are my brother.” He seized my wrist. “They must not be revealed, brother.”

  “I understand—brother.”

  “They must not be revealed,” said he, tightening his hand on my arm so that I could feel the bones moving about within, though I made no motion to withdraw from his painful grasp. “Must not, brother.”

  “Brother, they shall not be,” said I.

  Nor have they been, until this moment, when any pledge I might have made to Kinguri Jaqqa is long since cancelled and voided by the passage of time and the turning of events.

  Having been made privy to such great secrets, though, I began to fear anew for my life, thinking that Kinguri might regret what he had confided in me even more, when the wine had burned from his brain. So when I went to my sleeping-mat, I slept that night with one eye open, and both my ears. But no dark figure came upon me in the night, and in the days that succeeded Kinguri showed me only cordiality, and gave no hint that he was uneasy with me.

  It was the warm and rainy season, and several of the Jaqqas fell ill of fevers. For these sick ones, wickerwork houses were built at the far side of the camp, and they were made to dwell there, untended except for the bringing of a little food. No treatment were they given, though the man-witches of the tribe went to them and chanted prayers from a distance. The Jaqqas are generally very kind to one another in their health; but in their sickness they do abhor one another, and will shun their company.

  Some of the sick recovered, and some did not. Of these there were burials. To bury the dead they made a vault in the ground, and a seat for him to sit. The dead one had his head newly embroidered with beads and bangles, his body washed, and anointed with sweet powders. All his best robes were put on, and he was brought between two men to his grave, and set in seat as though he were alive. Then two of his wives were set with him, looking most solemn and in terror, as well they might be: for they were to be buried alive. The arms of these wives were broken, I suppose so they might not dig their way out of the grave. And when they were seated, the vault was covered over on the top. After this, comrades of the dead man mourned and sang doleful songs at his grave for the space of three days, and killed many goats, and poured their blood upon his grave, and palm-wine also.

  In the fullest of the season of the rain, when it came like greasy warm bullets out of the gray sky and turned the land to a quagmire and a mud-sea about us, this outbreak of fevers did become something like unto a great plague in the Jaqqa camp. Fifty, one hundred, two hundred fell ill, and perhaps more, with new victims every day. O
n the rim of the camp were whole villages of sick-houses, and the sound of moaning and retching was a hideous counterpointing of harsh symphonies under the drumming of the rain.

  The two great men of the Jaqqas took exceeding different outlooks upon this calamity. I saw Kinguri going each hour through the encampment with his shoulders hunched in despair and his black face even blacker with grief. With desperate energy did he strive to halt the spreading of the malady. He conferred often with the witches, and set them to work beating on drums to drive off the spirits, and when the rain permitted it he caused great fires to be lit, with powders hurled into them to send blazes of violent crimson and yellow hues into the air. Every death seemed perceptibly to diminish him. “These are valiant warriors perishing,” said he to me. “This is a curse upon us, and I cannot abide it!”

  “It will pass with the rain,” said I by way of consoling him, though I had no more idea of the truth of that than I did of the sort of birds that do live on the moon.

  “It is a curse,” said Kinguri again most gloomfully.

  He brooded and paced and boiled within as the outbreak became wholly epidemic amongst us. With ever more intent purpose he sought for some remedy. But meanwhile his brother Calandola held himself aloof, like a great mountain looming high above the mists and fogs, that dwelled in utter serenity in the midst of the chaos and the dying. From time to time I saw him moving through the camp among his special followers, observing in a most cool dispassioned way the downfall and wracking of his own armies. But at other times was he encloistered most placidly within his own dwelling, holding court amid wives and witches as if nothing untoward did progress. It was as though his view of the world, that was something that needed purging and cleansing and much destruction, did extend even unto his own nation: that he regarded this plague as a cooking away of needless impureness and dross from the hard gleaming core of the Jaqqa force. But that is only my own speculating; I could not tell you truly what enfolded in Imbe Calandola’s mind during this dark time.