Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“The tale? The tale is when it came to you, my friend, I was bewitched by the very conceit of it. You wish for something more? A reason? A way that I told myself it was just? Perhaps coin, or cowrie? The truth was I just fed my fill on the conceit of it. You think of the time I betrayed you? Think of the many times I did not betray you. The Bultungi hounded me for ten and three moons. That was ten and three moons of me thinking not of myself but of you.”

“Now you wish praise?”

“I wish for nothing.”

He started walking out of the bush, now all blue from night light. As it fell dark, his skin and feathers began to glow. I didn’t know where he was going and listened for the sound of the river, but I heard nothing.

“When the Aesi freed me, he told me of the new age,” I said. “Of how a bigger war was coming as sure as this war was here, a war to destroy everything. And at the heart of this war this boy. This abominable, perverted thing.”

“And you let him live,” Nyka said.

“It was only a guess. A heart twitch, not my head. Something amiss; I saw it as I saw him. He was already mad from it. Mad for it. Ipundulu blood. I saw it, I saw it then.”

“And you let him live.”

“I did not know.”

“The boy who led Sasabonsam to your house to kill—”

“I said I did not know.”

We kept walking for several paces.

“I cannot help rid you of it,” he said.

“Of what?”

“Your guilt.”

“Call the boy so I can kill him,” I said.

“What is his name? I know not.”

“Just call him boy, or crackle a lightning from your nipples or asshole or whichever place.”

Nyka laughed loud. He said he didn’t have to call him, for he knew where he was. We walked through bush and under trees until we came upon a clearing leading to a lake. I thought it was the White Lake, but was not sure. It looked like the White Lake, which had a pool at the end, not very wide, but very deep. They looked at us as if waiting for us to appear. The Leopard, the boy, and, holding a torch, with her face and breast hidden under kaolin clay, and with her headdress of feathers and stones, the woman on the mound before. Sogolon.

Seeing her on the other side of the lake did not shock me. Nor did my not recognizing her before, perhaps because when women age in these lands, they become the same woman. Perhaps she wore kaolin to hide what must have been horrible burn scars, but from where we stood, I saw nose, lips, even ears. I wondered how she survived, while not being surprised that she did. Meanwhile the Leopard, white from dust, stood a few paces behind her, with the boy between them. The boy looked at them, and at me. He saw Nyka and turned to run but Sogolon grabbed his thick hair and pulled him back.

“Red wolf,” she said. “No, not red no more. Wolf.”

I said nothing. I looked at the Leopard. Back in his armour like a man bound to a cause not his own. Not even a mercenary, just a soldier. I told myself I did not want to know what had gone inside his heart and grabbed it, what made this man who lived for no one and nobody turn to fight for the whims of kings. And their mothers. Look at you who we once called reckless and said it with love and envy. How low you have become, lower than shame, your neck hanging off your shoulder, as if the armour made you hunch. The boy was still struggling, trying to pull himself away from Sogolon, when she slapped him. He did what I saw before: shriek, then whimper, but with no feeling in his face. He was bigger now, almost as tall as Sogolon, but not much else showed in the dimness. He looked thin, like boys who grew but were not becoming men. Smooth, in just a loincloth, his legs and arms thin and long. Looking like no king or future king. He stared at Nyka, his tongue hanging out. I gripped my ax.

“Edjirim ebib ekuum eching otamangang na ane-iban,” she said. “When darkness falls, one embraces one’s enemy.”

“Did you translate for me or him?”

“You betray what you fight so long for?” Sogolon said.

“Look at you, Moon Witch. You don’t even look three hundred years old. But then, gunnugun ki ku lewe. How did you survive going back through that door?”

“You betraying that what you long fight for,” she said again.

“You talking to me or the Leopard?” I asked.

He looked straight at me. Sogolon and the boy were at the edge of the water and even in the dimness I saw their reflections. The boy looked like the boy, the torch rounding out his large head. Sogolon looked like a shadow. No kaolin clay, and blacker than dark everywhere, even her head, which had neither feathers nor hair.

“Ay, Leopard, is there no one left? No one for you to fail?” I asked.