Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Fancy prefect. Coin must be good in Kongor.”

“Look, you gods, a man wearing a curtain complains of me being fancy.”

The road smelled of wetlands. The horses sometimes stepped as if they were stuck. I grew tired, and felt all the cuts and scrapes from Kongor, one on my forearm feeling the most deep. I opened my eyes to feel two of his fingers on my forehead, pushing me off his shoulder. All I could think was fuck the gods if I had drooled on him.

“He must not sleep, is what she said. Why must you not sleep?” Mossi asked.

“The old witch and her old witch stories. She fears the Aesi will jump in my dreams.”

“Is this one more thing I should know?”

“Only if you believe it. She thinks he will visit me in dreams, and take my mind from me.”

“You do not believe?”

“I feel if the Aesi wants to take hold of your mind, part of you must have wanted to give it.”

“A high regard you all have for each other,” he said.

“Oh we are to each other like the snake is to the hawk. But look what love for your prefects has got you.”

He said nothing after that. I had the feeling that I hurt him, which bothered me. Everything my father said bothered me, but none so much that I would sit back and think of it. My grandfather, I mean.

We stopped as soon as the ground felt more dry. A clearing surrounded by thin savannah trees. Sogolon took a long twig and scratched runes in a circle around us, then ordered me and the prefect to find wood for the fire. Off in the thick of the trees, I saw her talking to Sadogo and pointing into the sky. Mossi broke two branches off a tree. He turned around, saw me, and walked over till he was not far from my face.

“The old woman, is she your mother?”

“Fuck the gods, prefect. Is it not clear I despise her?”

“That is why I asked.”

I shoved my branches on top of his and walked away. She was still scratching runes when I stood behind her. Are these just for you, I thought, but did not say. Sadogo grabbed a tree trunk, ripped it out of the earth, and laid it on its side for the girl to sit. Mossi tried to pet the buffalo, but he snorted at him and the prefect jumped back.

“Sogolon. We will have words, witch. Which lie do you wish to start with first? That the boy was Fumanguru’s blood? Or that the Omoluzu were after Fumanguru?” I said.

She threw away the stick, stooped in the circle, and blew a soft whisper.

“We will have words, Sogolon.”

“That day is no closer, Tracker.”

“That day?”

“The day when you are master over me.”

“Sogolon, you—”

A gust hit me in the chest, spun me in the air, and hurled me across the clearing before I saw her even blow. The Ogo ran over and pulled me up. He tried to dust me off, but each brush felt like a punch. I told him I was clean now and sat down by the fire Mossi had started. The girl looked at me awhile before she opened her mouth.

“Annoy her again and she done destroy you,” she said.

“And how will she find her boy?”

“She is Sogolon, master of the ten and nine doors. You seen it.”

“And yet she needs me to pass through them.”

“She don’t need you, this I know.”

“Then why am I still here? What do you know? Only days ago you were happy to be Zogbanu meat.”

The night stayed cold. Sadogo’s tree trunk was small enough for me to rest my head on. The fire blazed in the sky and warmed the ground, yet it looked as if it was getting weaker until it went black, though it still crackled and popped.

The slap scorched my cheek and shocked my eyes open. I grabbed my ax to swing when I saw the girl over me.

“No sleep till you come to Dolingo citadel. That is what she say.”

I boxed the buffalo’s ears until he whipped me with his tail. I asked the Ogo every question I could think of that would make him talk till morning, but he tried to swat me away. Then he yawned and fell asleep. And then the girl climbed on top of him and rested on his chest. There would be nothing of her if he rolled over, but she looked like she had done this before. Sogolon curled like an infant in her circle of runes and snored.

“Walk with me. I hear a river,” Mossi said.

“What if I have no wish—”

“Must you be the crabby husband in everything? Come with me or keep your place, either way I go.”

I caught up to him in a patch of thin trees with branches that scratched like thorns. He was still in front of me, stepping over dead trunks and chopping away branches and bush.

“And you can sense the boy?” he said, as if we were talking before.

“In a way. It has been said I have a nose.”

“By whom?” he asked.

“Whom indeed. If I get the smell of a man, or woman, or child, my nose follows him wherever he goes, no matter how far, until he dies.”

“Even to other lands?”

“Sometimes.”

“I do not believe you.”

“Are there no fantastic beasts in your land?”

“So you call yourself a beast?”

“And every question you reply with a question.”

“By my life ’tis as if you’ve always known me.” Mossi grinned. He tripped and I grabbed his arm before he fell. He nodded his thanks and continued. “Where is he now?”

“South. In Dolingo perhaps.”

“We are already in Dolingo.”