Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Your King, he find six of we. Your King, he kill them all, and not one he kill quick. Do you remember Babuta, Sogolon? He come to six of we, among them Ikede, who you know, and say, Enough with hiding in caves for no reason, we sing the true story of kings! We don’t own truth. Truth is truth and nothing you can do about it even if you hide it, or kill it, or even tell it. It was truth before you open your mouth and say, That there is a true thing. Truth is truth even after them who rule send poison griots to spread lie till they take root in every man’s heart. Babuta say he know a man in the court of the King who serve the King, but loyal to the truth. The man say the King come into knowledge of you since he have belly walkers on the ground and pigeons in the sky. So gather your griots and let a caravan take them to Kongor, for they can live safe among the books of the house of records. For the age of the voice is over and we in the age of the written mark. The word on stone, the word on parchment, the word on cloth, the word that is even greater than the glyph for the word provoke a sound in the mouth. And once in Kongor, let men of writing save words from lips and in that way they may kill the griot but can never kill the word. And Babuta say, back in the red caves stinking with sulfur, that this be a good thing, my brothers. This sound like we should take the man for his word. But Babuta is from the time when word fall like waterfall in a room and even smell like truth. And the man say, When the pigeon land at the mouth of this cave, in the evening two days from now, take the note from its right foot and follow the instructions of the glyphs, for it will tell you where to go. Do you know of the way of the pigeon? It flies in one direction, only to where is home. Unless they are bound by witchcraft, to think home is an otherwhere place. Babuta say to the man, Watch me now, no man here ever wished to read, and the man say, You will know when you see the glyphs, for the glyphs talk like the world. And Babuta approach the others, and Babuta approach me, and say this is a good thing, we must no longer live like dogs. And so instead we go to the hall of books and live like rats, I say. There is nobody in the King’s court any half imbecile should trust. And he say, Go suck a hyena’s teat for calling me a fool, and I leave the cave for I know it marked and I start to wander. Babuta and five man wait by the cave, day and night. And it come to pass three night hence that the pigeon land at the cave mouth. No drum ever beat. No drums ever tell where Babuta and the five go. But nobody ever see them again. So there be no southern griots. There be me.”

“That was a long story,” Sogolon said. “If not verse then no verse. Tell them about the lightning bird. And who travel with him.”

“You see how they work.”

“So have you.”

“One of you stop staring at the shit and tell us the story,” Mossi said. And it was going to be the first time he didn’t irritate me, had he not smiled at me when he said it.

The man sat down on the bed that Sogolon never sleeps in and said, “A wicked word come from the West, ten and four nights previous. A village right by the Red Lake. A woman say to her neighbor, Is one quartermoon now we don’t see anybody from that house, three hut down the left. But they is quiet folk who keep their own company, another woman say. But not even the spirit of the breeze this quiet, another say and they go to the hut to look see. All around the hut death be stinking, but the foul coming from dead beasts, from cows and goats slaughtered not for food but for blood and sport. The fisherman, his first wife and second wife, and three sons dead but they did not smell. How to describe a sight strange even to the gods? They were all gathered around like worship fetishes, piled up as if about to burn. They have skin like tree bark. Like the blood, the flesh, the humors, the rivers of life, something suck it all out. The first and second wife, both of them chest cut open and they heart rip out. But not before he bite them all over the neck and rape them, leaving his dead seed to grow rot in they womb. You already call him name.”

“Ipundulu. Who is his witch? He roaming loose like he not under command anymore?” Sogolon asked.

“He not. The witch who control him die before she could pass ownership to she daughter, so Ipundulu change back into the lightning bird and grab the daughter with him claws, and fly with her high and high and high, then let her go. She hit the ground and smash to juice. This is how you know he seed was in the two wife. For little drops of lightning was falling out of they kehkeh even after they start rot. The Ipundulu he the handsomest of men, he skin white like clay, whiter than this one, but pretty like him too.”

He pointed at Mossi.

“Ayet bu ajijiyat kanon,” Mossi said, and surprised everyone.