Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Why did they put us away from the others, Venin? That is all I said and she says that is not her name, and yells to take my monster arms and my monster face away, you will never get anywhere near me, for I am a fearsome warrior who wants to burn the world. And then she called me shoga. She is different.”

“Maybe she did not see things the way you saw things, Sadogo,” Mossi said. “Who knows the ways of women?”

“No, she is different and—”

“Do not say Sogolon. Her scrawny hand is in far too many bowls for us to talk about them all. There is a plot, Sadogo. And the girl might be in league with Sogolon.”

“But she spat when I said her name.”

“Who knows why they bicker? We have more serious issues, Ogo.”

“All these ropes, coming from nowhere and pulling everything. Foul magic.”

“Slaves, Ogo,” Mossi said.

“I do not understand.”

“Let that rest for another day, Sadogo. The witch had other plans.”

“She does not want the boy?”

“That is still her plan. We are just not a part of it. She intends to get the boy herself after I find him, and with this Queen’s help. I think the Queen and her struck a bargain. Maybe when Sogolon rescues the boy the Queen will give safe passage to the Mweru.”

“But that is what we do. Why the deceit?”

“I don’t know. This Queen gets to have us for their wicked science, maybe.”

“Is that why everybody is blue? Wicked science?”

“I don’t know.”

“Venin, she pushed me out the door with one hand. How I must disgust her.”

“She pushed you out? With one hand?” I asked.

“That is what I said.”

“I have seen an enraged woman turn over a wagon full of metal and spices. It might have been my wagon, or I might have enraged her,” Mossi said.

“Sadogo,” I said, louder, to shut Mossi up. “We need to be on guard, we need weapons, we need to get off this citadel. How do you feel about the boy? Should we rescue him as well?”

He looked at both of us, then out the door, furrowing his brow. “We should save the boy. No blame is on him.”

“Then that is what we shall do,” Mossi said. “We wait for them to arrive in Dolingo. We take them on ourselves, not telling the witch.”

“We need weapons,” I said.

“I know where they keep them,” said Sadogo. “No man could lift my gloves, so I took them to the swords keeper.”

“Where?”

“On this tree, the lowest level.”

“And Sogolon?” Mossi said.

“There,” he said, and pointed behind us. The palace.

“Good. We go when the bloodsuckers come. Till then—”

“Tracker, what is that?” Mossi said.

“What is what?”

“Do you have a nose or no? That sweet scent on the air.”

As he said so, I smelled it. The smell grew sweeter and stronger. In the red room nobody saw the orange mist coming from the floor. Mossi fell first. I staggered, fell to my knees, and saw Sadogo run to the door, punching the wall out of anger, fall back on his bottom, then full on his back, and shaking the room, before everything in the room went white.

NINETEEN

I knew it was seven days since we left Kongor. And forty and three days since we set off on this journey. And in one whole moon. I knew because counting numbers was all that kept my feet on the ground. I knew we were in the trunk of one of the trees. One big shackle around my neck, attached to a long, heavy chain. My arms chained behind my back. My clothes gone. I had to turn to see the ball the chain was bolted to. Both were stone. Someone told them of me and metals. Sogolon.

“I say, tell us where is the boy,” he said.

The chancellor. The Queen must be upstairs waiting for the news. No, not the Queen.

“If Sogolon wants news of the boy, tell the witch to come for it herself,” I said.

“Boy, boy, boy it will be good to tell me of your nose. If I go other men will come with instruments, yes.”

The last time I was in a dark room, shape-shifting women came at me out of the dark. The memory made me wince, which this fool thought was because of his threat of torture.

“Do you yet sniff the boy?”

“I will talk to the witch.”

“No, no, no, that is a no. Do you—”

“I smell something. I smell goat, the liver of a goat.”

“How good you are, man of the Ku. Breakfast was indeed breakfast of liver, and sorghum from my own fields, and coffee from the merchants of the North, very exquisite, yes.”

“But the goat liver I smell is raw, and why does the reek come from your crotch, chancellor? Your Queen knows that you practice white science?”

“Our glorious Queen allows all craft.”

“As long as it is not in your glorious Queen’s court. See now, you will have to torture me, chancellor, or at least kill me. You know this is true, nothing will stop me from telling anyone who should hear.”

“Not if I cut out that tongue.”

“Like you do your slaves? Does your Queen not want us, traveling men sound and whole?”

“Our Queen only needs one part of you, sound and whole.”

I squeezed my legs together, without thinking, and he laughed loud.

“Where the boy is?”

“The boy is nowhere. He still travels from Wakadishu and does that not take days? You can meet him in Wakadishu.”

“You are here to meet him in Dolingo.”