Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Leopards do not know of death. They never think of it, because it is nothing to think of. Why do we do this, Tracker? Why do we think of nothing?”

“I don’t know. Because we have to believe in something.”

“A man I knew said he didn’t believe in belief.” He laughed and coughed.

“A man I knew said nobody loves no one.”

“Both of them only fools. Only f …”

His head fell back in my arms.

Give them no peace, cat. Find sport in the underworld and shame its lords, I thought but did not say. He was the first man I could say I loved, though he was not the first man I would say it to.

I wondered if I would ever stop to think of these years, and I knew I would not, for I would try to find sense, or story, or even a reason for everything, the way I hear them in great stories. Tales about ambition and missions, when we did nothing but try to find a boy, for a reason that turned false, for people who turned false.

Maybe this was how all stories end, the ones with true women and men, true bodies falling into wounding and death, and with real blood spilled. And maybe this is why the great stories we told are so different. Because we tell stories to live, and that sort of story needs a purpose, so that sort of story must be a lie. Because at the end of a true story, there is nothing but waste.

Sogolon spat in the dirt.

“I wish my eyes had never seen your face,” I said.

“I wish my eye never see me too.”

I picked up Leopard’s sword. I could bring it down on her head right there, slice the skull in two like cutting a melon open.

“You wish to kill me. Better hurry up and do it. For me live a good—”

“Fuck the gods and your mouth, Sogolon. Your queen couldn’t even remember your name when I told her you were dead. Besides, if I kill you, who will send news to the King sister that her little snake is dead? How goes our fellowship now, witch? The Leopard should see the one who killed him, right behind him in the underworld. The gods would laugh, wouldn’t they?”

“There are no gods. This Aesi didn’t tell you? Even now you head so hard you don’t see what truly taking place.”

“Truth and you never lived in the same house. We are at the end of this tale, you and I.”

“He is the god butcher!”

“A new thing? But we are at the end of this story, Moon Witch. Take up this new thing with whatever hungry beast comes for your face.”

Sogolon gulped.

“Survival has always been your only skill,” I said.

“Wolf boy, give me drink. Give me drink!”

I looked at her head, like a black stone on the ground, swinging around, trying to move out of the ground. I searched for my ax and could not find it. And my knives were long gone. Losing them made me think of losing everything else. Cutting everything loose. I took the holster off my back, pulled my belt, and stepped out of my tunic and loincloth. I started walking north, following that star to the right of the moon. He came and went quick, like an afterthought, he did. The Aesi. He appeared in that way, as if he was always here, and left in that way, as if he never was. The hyenas would make use of the Leopard. It was the way of the bush, and it would have been what he wanted.

Maybe this was the part where men with smarter heads and bigger hearts than mine looked at how the crocodile ate the moon, and how the world spins around the gods of sky, especially the gone sun god, regardless of what men and women do in their lands. And maybe from that came some wisdom, or something that sounded like it. But all I wanted to do was walk, not to anything, not from anything, just away. From behind me I heard, “Give me drink! Give me drink!”

Sogolon kept shouting.

I kept walking.

I walked the lands for days, and across wetlands and dryland until I was in Omororo, the seat of your mad King. Where men detained me as a beggar, took me for a thief, tortured me as a traitor, and when the King sister heard of her child dead, arrested me as a murderer.

And now look at me and you, in Nigiki city-state, where neither of us wants to be, but neither of us has anywhere to go.

I know you’ve heard her testimony. So, what does mighty Sogolon say?

Does she say, Do not trust one word coming from Tracker’s mouth? Not about the boy, not about the search, not about Kongor, not about Dolingo, not about who died and who was saved, not about the ten and nine doors, not about his so-called friend, the Leopard, or his so-called lover from the East, called Mossi, and was that even his name, and were they even lovers? Or his precious mingi children that he did not spawn? Did she say, Trust no word coming from the lips of that Wolf Eye?

Tell me.

Acknowledgments

Writers never create great stories. We find them. So thanks to everyone who allowed me to listen in and find worlds beyond words.