Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“I have a feeling, witch, it was only for you. You keep saying we were useless when use is exactly what you put us to. And the girl, poor Venin, you rid of her own body because Jakwu, or whatever his name is, was of greater use. This whole failure is on you,” Mossi said.

Jakwu jumped off his horse and stepped to the gate. I don’t think he had ever seen one.

“What do I see through this hole?”

“The way to Mitu,” Sadogo said.

“I shall take it.”

“All might not be fine with you,” I said. “Jakwu has never seen the ten and nine doors, but Venin has.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means, though your soul is new, your body might burn,” Mossi said.

“I shall take it,” Jakwu said.

Sogolon looked at the gate the whole time. She staggered right up to it. I knew she thought of it. That she had made it to three hundred, ten and five years, mayhaps surviving worse, and besides, who had time for old woman tales that nobody could ever prove?

“Well you all seem like the gods smile on you, but nothing here for me,” Jakwu said. “Maybe I go to the North and have those Kampara perverts make me one of their wooden cocks.”

“May good fortune come to you,” Mossi said, and Jakwu nodded.

He headed to the door. Sogolon stepped out of the way.

Mossi grabbed my shoulder and said, “Where now?” I didn’t know what to say to him, or how to say that wherever it was I hoped it would be in his company.

“I have no stake in this boy, but I will go where you go,” he said.

“Even if that means Kongor?”

“Well, I am one for amusements.”

“People trying to kill you is an amusement?”

“I have laughed at worse.”

I turned to Sadogo. “Great Ogo, where go you now?”

“Who care about the cursed giant?” Sogolon said. “All of you whining like all of you is little bitch, because the old woman outsmart you. This not what you all make for? And you can’t smell it, touch it, drink it, or fuck it, so it mean nothing to you. Nothing bigger than yourself.”

“Sogolon, you keep mourning this death of morals you never had,” I said.

“Me telling you all. Whatever coin you want. Your own weight in silver. When the boy on the throne in Fasisi, you will have gold dust just to give your servants. You say you would do it for the boy if not for me. For the boy to see his mother. You like seeing a woman go down on her knees? You want my breasts in the dirt?”

“Don’t disgrace yourself, woman.”

“Me beyond honor or disgrace. Words, they just words. The boy is everything. The future of the kingdom is … the boy, he going—”

The door had shrunk to about half my height and hung above the ground. Jakwu’s hand pushed through it, catching fire, grabbed the neck of Sogolon’s dress, and pulled her right in. Her feet burst into flames before Jakwu dragged all of her through, but it was quick, quicker than a god’s blink. Mossi and I rushed to the door but the opening was now smaller than our heads. Sogolon screamed from here to there, screamed at what we could only imagine was happening to her until the door closed on itself.

TWENTY

Strong winds blew into the sails and pushed the dhow. This was the fastest I ever see it go, save for a storm, the captain said, but claimed it was sake of neither river nor wind goddess. He wasn’t sure which, even though the answer showed itself clear to anybody who went belowdecks. We boarded the dhow to Kongor a day ago, and here is why it made sense. We could not go through Dolingo, for no one had word on whether the rebellion had spread or if the Queen’s men doused it. Dolingo’s mountains rose higher than Malakal and would have taken five nights to cross, followed by four through Mitu, before we reached Kongor. But a boat on the river took three nights and half a day. The last I sailed on a dhow, the boat was less than ten and six paces long, not even seven paces wide, and carried five of us. This boat was half the walk of a sorghum field and wider than twenty paces, and had two sails, one as wide as the ship and just as high, the other half that size, both cut like shark fins. Three floors belowdecks, all empty, made the ship sail faster, but also made it easier to capsize. A slave ship.

“That ship, have you ever seen the like?” Mossi said when I pointed it out docked by the river.

A half day’s walk led us to a clearing and the river, which ran from far south of Dolingo, snuck past it on the left, snaked around Mitu, and split to surround Kongor. On the other side of the river, the giant trees and thick mists hid the Mweru.

“I have seen the like,” I said to him about the ship.