Black Leopard, Red Wolf

His date feeder opened a sack, pulled out scrolls, and handed them to us. Nyka refused and so did Nsaka Ne Vampi. I wondered if she refused because he did. She talked much those nights ago, but said nothing now. Fumeli took one for the Leopard, who was still a Leopard, though he was listening.

“That is a map of the city drawn to the best recollection, since I have not been there in years. Beware of Kongor. Roads seem straight, and lanes promise to take you where they say they go, but they twist and snake you, and bend into places you will not want to go, places of no return. Listen to me good, I tell you true. There are two ways to get to Kongor. Tracker, you know of what I speak. Some of you will not. When you head west and get to the White Lake, you can go around it, which will add two days to your journey, or cross, which will take a day, for the lake is narrow. That is your choice, not mine. Then you can choose to ride around the Darklands, which will add three days to your journey, or ride through, but it is the Darklands,” the slaver said.

“What is the Darklands?” the boy Fumeli said.

The slaver grinned, then lost his grin. “Nothing that you can conceive in your head. Who here has been through the Darklands?”

Both Nyka and I nodded. We went through it together many years past, and neither of us would talk of it here. I already knew I was going around it, no matter what the others thought. Then Sogolon nodded.

“Again. Your choice, not mine. Three days’ ride to go around the Darklands, but one day to go through. And with either, it would still be three more days before Kongor. If you go around, you will head through nameless lands not claimed by any king. If you go through you will also travel through Mitu, where men have put down arms to ponder the great questions of earth and sky. A tiresome land and a tiresome race, you might find them worse than anything awaiting you in the Darklands. It will take you a day’s ride just to get out. But this again is your choice. Bibi here shall come with you.”

“Him? What shall he do? Feed us what we can reach for with our own hands?” Nyka said.

“I go for protection,” he said.

I was surprised at his voice, more commanding, like a warrior’s, not like someone who was trying to sing like a griot. This was the first time I really looked at him. Skinny as Fumeli and wearing a white djellaba gown past the knee, with a belt tied around the waist. From the belt hung a sword, which was not there the last two times I saw him. He saw me looking at it and approached me.

“I have never seen a takouba this far from the East,” I said.

“The owner should have never come west then,” he said, and smiled. “My name is Bibi.”

“Was that the name he gave you?” I asked.

“If that ‘he’ is my father, then yes.”

“Every slave I know, the master forced on him a new name.”

“And were I a slave, a new name I would have. You think me a slave because I feed him dates? He has me playing his deceits. People say much to a man who is less than a wall.”

I turned away from him, but that meant facing Nyka. He walked off a few paces, expecting me to follow.

“Tracker, you and me, we both left something in the Darklands, eh?” he said.

I stared at him.

“He should have left his woman tip,” Nsaka Ne Vampi said, and I was furious that he was telling her things about me. Betraying me still. They walked off, even though the slaver opened his mouth to say more.

“Of course, to tell you true, there are rumors. The last place eyes have seen him was not even Kongor, but not only eyes see. I told you before. You can follow the trail of the dead, who was found dead and quickly buried, sucked out like juice from a berry. There was word of a boy and four others in Nigiki, one time long ago in Kongor. But find him and bring him back to me in Malakal where—”

“You no longer ask for proof of his death?” I asked.

“I will be at the collapsed tower. This is all I have to say. Sogolon, I will speak to you alone,” he said.

Sogolon, who had not said a word up to this point, went off with him to the caravan.

“I know you need no help to get to Kongor,” Nyka said.

I was already looking west, but I turned around to see his face. Always a handsome man, even now with white hair peeking under his chin and brushing across the top of his plait. And his swollen lip.

“Here is a question only you are fit to answer. Though you never was one for words, which is why you used to need me. If you take the way through the Darklands, how many of you will make it to the other side, hmm? The Leopard? Cunning as a cat but too hot as a man, his temper makes him foolish. Like a young you, no? The crone talking to master slaver? She going to drop dead before you even get to the lake. So, that little boy over there, who fucks him, you or the cat? He will not even mount a horse, much less ride it. That leaves you with the slave—”

“He is not a slave.”

“No?”

“He said so.”

“I did not hear.”

“You did not listen.”