Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“The higher ones call me Venin. They call all chosen ones Venin. He is Venin and she is Venin. The great mothers and fathers chose me from before birth to be a sacrifice to the Zogbanu. I have been in prayer from birth till now and I am still in prayer.”

“Why are they this far north?”

“I am the chosen one to sacrifice to the horned gods. This is how it was with my mother and the mother of my mother.”

“Mother and mother of moth … Then how are you here? Someone remind me, why did we take this one?” I said.

“Maybe stop asking questions where you know the answer,” the Leopard said.

“Is that it? Where would I be without the wise Leopard? What is this answer that I already know?”

“They would have eaten down to girl and boy bones by now. They were waiting for us.”

“Your slaver told them we were coming,” I said to the Leopard.

“He’s not my slaver,” he said.

“You both fool. Why send we on a mission then stop we from doing it?” Sogolon asked.

“He changed his mind,” I said.

She frowned. I was not going to say, Sogolon, what you say here is true. The Leopard nodded.

“Nothing point to no betrayal from the slaver,” she said.

“Of course. The Zogbanu was just following shifting winds. Maybe it was someone on this raft. Or off it.”

The sun was right above us and the lake had gone deeper blue. Bunshi was in the water, I saw her low down in the blue; her skin, which looked black in the night, now looked indigo. She darted like a fish, up above the water, then down, the east far off and west far off, then back, right beside the raft. She was like water creatures I have seen in rivers. A fin right down the back of her head and neck, shoulders and breasts and belly like a woman’s, but from the hip down the long swishy tail of a great fish.

“What is she doing?” I said to Sogolon, who up till now hadn’t bothered to look at me. The view ahead was nothing but the line separating sea from sky, but she fixed her eyes on it.

“You have never seen a fish?”

“She is not a fish.”

“She is speaking to Chipfalambula. Asking her for one more traveling mercy to take us to the other side. We are not here by permission, after all.”

“Not where?”

“You fool,” she said, and looked down.

“This?” I said, and kicked up dirt.

Her standing there, looking like a leader, annoyed me. I walked past her to the front of the raft and sat down. Here the mound sloped down into the river. I could see the rest of the raft under the water. It was not a raft, it was a floating island controlled by wind or magic. Two fishes, maybe as tall as I am, swam in front.

What I saw next I was sure I did not see. The island below the sea opened a slit right at the front where I sat and swallowed the first fish. Half of the second stuck out, but the opening chomped it down. Below my right heel I saw Chipfalambula’s eyes looking up at me. I jumped. Her gills opened and closed. Farther down her enormous fins, each wider than a boat, paddled slow in the lake, the half below the water a morning blue, the half above the colour of sand and dust.

“Popele asks permission of the Chipfalambula the toll taker to take us to the other side. She has not yet given an answer,” Sogolon said.

“We are long gone from land. Is that not her answer?”

Sogolon laughed. Bunshi leapt fully out of the water and dived, right in front of it, whatever it was.

“Chipfalambula does not take you into deep water to carry you to the other side. She takes you out to eat you.”

Sogolon was serious. Nobody felt the thing moving but we all felt when it stopped. Bunshi swam right up to its mouth and I thought it would swallow her. She dove under and came up by the side of her right fin. It swatted her as one would a wasp and she flew into the sky and landed far off into the water. She swam back in a blink and climbed back on top of the big fish. She walked past us to stand with Sogolon. The great fish started moving again.

“Fat cow, cantankerousness growing in her old age,” she said.

I went over to the Leopard. He still sat with Fumeli, both of them with knees drawn up to chest.

“I will have words with you,” I said.

He stood up, as did Fumeli. Both wore leather skirts, but the Leopard was not as uneasy with it as he was back at Kulikulo Inn.

“You only,” I said.

Fumeli refused to sit, until the Leopard turned around and nodded.

“Wearing sandals next?”

“What is this about?” Leopard asked.

“You have something else pressing you? Another meeting on the back of this fish?”

“What is this about?”

“I went to see an elder about Basu Fumanguru. Just to see if these stories would turn true. He told me that the Fumanguru house fell to sickness, caught from a river demon. But when I said something about cutting my hand and throwing blood, he looked up to the ceiling before I even said it. He knows. And he lied. Bisimbi is not a river demon. They have no love for rivers.”

“So that is where you went?”

“Yes, that is where I went.”

“Where is this elder now?”