Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Other people will say that it is the roads of the gods when they travel this world. Step through one and you in Malakal. Step through one in the Darklands and look: You in Kongor. Step through another and you even in a South kingdom like Omororo, or out in the sea or mayhaps a kingdom not of this world. Some men spend till they gray just to find one door, and all you do is sniff one out.”

“Bibi was of Seven Wings,” I said.

“He was just an escort. You smelling a game that nobody playing.”

“Seven Wings works for whoever pays, but nobody pays more than our great King. And here they assemble outside this lookout.”

“You tracking small matters, Tracker. Leave the big things to the big people of the world.”

“If this is why I woke myself I will go back to sleep. How are the Leopard and the Ogo?”

“Gods give them good fortune, but they recover slow. Who is this mad monkey? He rape them?”

“Strange how I never thought to ask that. Maybe he was going to suck their souls, and lick their feelings.”

“Ba! Your sour mouth tire me out. The Ogo of course stand because he never fall.”

“That is my Ogo. Does the girl still ride with you?”

“Yes. Two days I slap out this foolishness about running back to Zogbanu.”

“She is dead weight. Leave her in this city.”

“What a day when a man tell me what to do. Will you not speak of the child?”

“Who?”

“The reason we come to Kongor.”

“Oh. In these twenty and nine days gone, what news have you of the house?”

“We did not go.”

This “we” I left for another day. “I do not believe you,” I said.

“What a day when I care what a man believe.”

“What a day when these days come. But I am tired, and the Darklands took my fight. Did you go to the house or no?”

“I bring peace to a girl that monsters breed to make breakfast of her flesh. Then I wait for usefulness to return to you. The boy not more missing.”

“Then we should go.”

“Soon.”

I wanted to say that nobody seemed too earnest in completing our mission and finding this boy, nobody meaning her, but she went to the doorway and I noticed there was no door, only a curtain.

“Who owns this house? Is it an inn? A tavern?”

“I say again. A man with too much money, and too many favors he owes me. He meet us soon. Now he running around like a headless chicken, trying to build another room, or floor, or window, or cage.”

She was already beyond the curtain when she looked back.

“This day is already given. And Kongor is a different city at night. See to your cat and giant,” she said. Only then did my head remember that she was saying she was over three hundred years old. Nothing said old more than an old woman thinking she was even older.

The Ogo sat on the floor, trying on his iron gloves, punching his left palm so hard that little lightning sparked in his hands. It was all over his face, blankness. Then as he punched his hand, he worked up into a rage that made him snort through his teeth. Then he went blank again. Standing in front of him as he sat there was the first time our eyes met on the same line. Sun was running from noon, but inside his room dimmed to evening. Things were stored in this room as well. I smelled kola nuts, civet musk, lead, and two or three floors below, dried fish.

“Sadogo, you sit there like a soldier itching for battle.”

“I itch to kill,” he said, and struck his palm again.

“This might happen soon.”

“When do we go back to the Darklands?”

“When? Never, good Ogo. The Leopard you should have never followed.”

“We would have slept there still, if not for you.”

“Or be meat for the mad monkey.”

Sadogo roared lion like, and punched the floor. The room shook.

“I shall rip his tail from his shit-smeared ass, and watch him eat it.”

I touched his shoulder. He flinched for a blink, then rested.

“Of course. Of course. As you say, it will be done, Ogo. Will you still go with us? To the house. To find the boy, wherever it takes us?”

“Yes of course, why would I not?”

“The Darklands leave many changed.”

“I am changed. Do you see that? That on the wall.”

He pointed to a blade, long and thick, iron brown with rust. The grip wide for two hands, a thick straight blade right down to halfway, where it curved to a crescent like a bitten-out moon.

“Do you know it?” Sadogo said.

“Never seen the like.”