Maurice Broaddus - [BCS300 S03] Read online

  When he reached an upper ridge, he stopped to rest. A few minutes later, Gerard’s pale forearm slapped onto the ledge. Dinga hoisted his friend the rest of the way up. Slipping the pack from his shoulder, Dinga allowed his muscles the freedom to unclench, conserving their strength for the final climb of the cliff face. Though he didn’t know what he would find, he knew their journey was nearing its end. One way or another. The pair huffed together in silence.

  Dinga chanced a peek over the edge. Wisps of clouds lolled over the tree tops below them. It was as if they had left the world behind them, separated from all that was familiar. Gerard passed him a waterskin, and he drank sparingly before returning it. Fumbling through his own pack, Gerard’s eyes filled with the frustration a traveler belatedly remembering all the things he forgot to bring. The silence thickened between them, intruding on them, whispering in the language of sorrow. Gerard could not take its trespass for long.

  “This journey is madness.”

  “And yet, here you are.” Dinga’s head rested on his arms, propped up by his raised knees.

  “By your side.” Gerard fished about in his pack. “And I bet you don’t even appreciate it.”

  “This madness might have many symptoms. Maybe lack of giving thanks is one.”

  “I’m serious.” A now unfamiliar note filled Gerard’s voice signaling his solemnity. “This is a quest for death. You have already stopped living, and it’s like you won’t be satisfied until your body follows your spirit.”

  “I made a promise to deliver this. So I will go there, no matter the price, because I need a place to take my...” Dinga didn’t know what word he reached for to describe what he felt. Like trying to push through a wall of stone, refusing to be moved, unable to touch it. Afraid that were he fully immersed in it, he would never return. Yet if he didn’t go to where he needed, he also might never return.

  “You can’t convince me she would have wanted this. Your loss is real, I understand that. But you have built a shelter in your grief. I’m sorry. I’m probably the only person left who might have the right to say that to you.” Gerard took another swig from the waterskin before burying it back in his pack. He no longer met Dinga’s eyes. “I loved her, too.”

  Without another word, Dinga reached for a solid crag overhead and lifted himself up. From his vantage point, the summit of the cliff remained hidden. He concentrated only on the climb, ignoring its strange disorientation. A terrible inversion of the heart, a steep descent into dark places. A sheer drop into his own emptiness. His muscles ached to the point of numbness. Unable to feel, floating in a well without words, all he knew was that he had to stay present in his pain. Exposed on the mountain face, unable to hide. Not giving into the panic, feeling overwhelmed, helpless, alone, the jumble of emotions churning within him as he climbed. Left with nothing but the spirits of his ancestors and the ghosts of his memories, he had to keep moving...

  ...as he wandered the Land of Tribes. Ever since he had made up his mind to prove himself to his Father Nyame, his journeys had brought him to the north in search of a legend only whispered about. The lost city of Wagadu. Someone dogged his trail, that much he knew. Though they maintained their distance, his well-honed hunter’s instinct alerted him that someone was following him.

  The city of Utica was a port along the north coast. When he reached it, he wandered the streets, confused for a beggar. He made friends quickly: of the men who attempted to rob him, two remained on their feet; one might regain the sight of their left eye given time; and the last told him of the place where scoundrels met. Dinga knew that was where he would find the information he needed.

  Dinga slipped into the tavern the robber had told him of, the Empty Kraal, retreating to a seat toward the rear where he could both observe all exits and the patrons. Weak flickering lamplight barely illuminated the room. In the corner, a musician tamped the wooden keys of a balafon, accompanied by a troupe pounding the soft canvas of djembe drums. Dinga ordered a meal and waited.

  Within the hour, Gerard stumbled in. Dinga had run across Gerard on several occasions. Gerard always seemed to cross his path whenever a bounty marked his head back in his homeland. Few of Gerard’s nation ventured deep into the Land of Tribes. But he visited often of late, lingering, Dinga knew, until he believed his kinsmen had forgotten about his latest transgressions. The trail he followed usually led to the intersection of reward and opportunity and to unscrupulous dealings.

  Even with the simple drape of his chiton cloaked by his thick woolen chlamys, Gerard’s peculiar gait announced him. His gray-tinged beard framed by a tangled black mane of magnificent hair bards might sing about for generations. His locks fallen across his forehead, he carried himself somewhere between an already-tipsy philosopher lost on his way to the local school and, with mighty limbs forged from a life of hard labor, an ex-soldier ever braced for a fight. He couldn’t have been the one trailing Dinga because he didn’t bother to ferret the tavern’s shadows for him. Instead, he sidled up to the bar and loudly ordered drinks. Before long, he was singing songs and regaling the gathered thieves with tales of a golden city.

  Then she strode in. Lalyani.

  It had been years since Dinga had seen her last, but there she stood there as if only a day had passed. With her gazelle-pelt skirt, cowrie and copper necklaces, iron and ebony bracelets, and thin plaits, she joined Gerard, silencing him. Dinga continued to eat, studying them all the while. Once finished, allowing them time to be lulled into their intense conversation, he approached them.

  “’Oh wanderer, lost in the Valley of Life, remember that nothing is ever what it seems to be, and seeing is not always believing,’“ Gerard recited upon noticing him.

  “Is he with you?” Dinga asked Lalyani.

  “Do I strike you as someone who travels by song?” A mildly annoyed sneer stretched across Lalyani’s face.

  “The road is a long and lonely life. Company is not always a bad thing.” Dinga glared at the nearest patron, who was obviously eavesdropping as much as he could. The man vacated his seat, allowing Dinga to sit.

  “Are you offering?” Lalyani leaned back but didn’t fold her arms in front of her. His presence intrigued her. The moment between them, charged; before settling into something comfortable and familiar, like finding a piece of himself he didn’t realize was missing.

  “Do I strike you as someone who travels with drunken bards?” Dinga jabbed a thumb in Gerard’s direction.

  “As I said, he’s not with me.”

  “I’m sitting right here.” Gerard feigned protest, more as an excuse to gesture for another drink.

  “I’ve heard tell of a mighty warrior in search of a lost city.” Dinga nodded for another drink. The barmaid winked at him and brought him lotus juice in a tall cup. Slipping her a few extra coins for her discretion, he would keep his head clear.

  “What sort of warrior?” Lalyani asked.

  “Mighty. Brash. Feared.”

  “A woman?” she asked.

  “The finer details of the story were lost in the telling.” Dinga smiled, not something he did often, but Lalyani always had a way of drawing that out of him.

  “Look, Din...,” Gerard interjected. “Mind if I call you ‘Din’?”

  “Only if you don’t want me to answer you.” Dinga suspected that Gerard exaggerated much of his ignorance to lull those he encountered into underestimating him

  “Well, we’re in the middle of a business conversation.” Gerard gestured toward Lalyani. “Of the one-to-one, client services variety.”

  “The topic of which may align with my own interests.” Dinga took a long swig of his lotus juice. “If it reassures you, I have no interest in any bounty, only in reaching the city itself.”

  “No interest in any bounty?” Gerard drank before muttering to himself. “No interest in the truth apparently.”

  Ignoring him, Dinga turned to Lalyani. “Tell me more of your city.”

  “There is a city out there, governed by a race of go
ds.” Lalyani’s eyes grew distant, lost recalling the telling of a dream. “Where the best, brightest, and bravest dwell. A city of wonders. I’ve heard tell of giant towers, contraptions allowing people to fly, weapons undreamt of, and medicine to cure any disease.”

  Dinga considered her story. At first blush it sounded like the fabled city of Nok; the celestial version, not the terrestrial one his people called home. To hear the griots tell the tales, many of the ancient cities were earthbound incarnations of ones named in the heavenly realms. He wanted the city to be Wagadu, the prophecied lost city some whispered he was fated to rule. It was told that Wagadu had disappeared for seven years, then was found again, only to vanish for another seven-hundred forty years.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Gerard tracked his eyes. “If the great war drum, Tabele, is beaten, it will be found again.”

  Lalyani passed a glance from Dinga to Gerard and back, with the uncertain stare of someone who knew they held only a piece of the story. She continued, her voice tentative. “Devils tied the city fast to the sky.”

  “Gold or no gold,” Gerard said, “it sounds like a fool’s errand.”

  “Then we should take a fool,” Dinga said.

  “I’m still right here.” Gerard raised his mug in a toast toward them. “But this humble fool has a great thirst. Barmaid!”

  “We have many ears surround us.” Dinga leaned in. “Someone has been trailing me all day.”

  Gerard rubbed his chin. “I may have the beginnings of a cunning plan.”

  “That perhaps I should go outside to draw them out to see who is so intent on divining my destination?”

  “That does sound remarkably close to my idea,” Gerard said. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No,” Dinga and Lalyani said in unison.

  Dinga snuck out the back entrance, down a dark corridor. With space at a premium, the port city’s buildings pressed close together, barely allowing room for people to pass. Little light fell into the alley. Still, he didn’t have to wait long for a scurry of movement as four men stepped out of the shadows, looking to surround him. Each clutched what Dinga took as a pehla stick: long, wildebeest-tail switches. However, the reedy sticks began to glow, their dull green charge throwing a stolid gleam onto the men’s faces. Their armor was equally strange, with vests of gold scales and a fringed collar mimicking the hide of a lion.

  The first man punched Dinga in the belly, robbing the wind from him and sending him sprawling back into the dust. The beaming pehla sticks whistled like frayed bamboo rods, the sting sending lightning flashes of pain along Dinga’s backside as if directly stabbing his brain. He opened his mouth to cry out, only for a guard’s hands to grapple him as they wrestled along the ground.

  “That didn’t take long.” Lalyani stepped into the alleyway.

  “Dinga has a way of causing things to escalate.” Gerard drew a short sword from within the folds of his chlamys. He glanced back at Lalyani. “Aren’t you joining in?”

  “By the code of where I come from, fighting should only be done among equals. With spear or sword. If someone from an upper caste has to fight someone from lower caste, it shows contempt for them.”

  “Yes,” Gerard waded toward the men, “I’m going to need you to show some contempt.”

  “Be aware,” Lalyani brought her spear to bear with a smile, “When elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled.”

  She dove into the men with the lithe grace of a dancer.

  Renewed at the sight of his comrades, Dinga threw the warrior astride him off, and the men’s next attacks struck only the air. The pehla sticks sang, their reedy call filling Dinga’s ears like a swarm of bees. He could no longer distinguish between the pounded rhythms of the drums inside and his own pulse slamming at his temples.

  Ducking, he avoided the blows. Gerard swept the legs of the one behind him, only to be grabbed by the neck and slammed into the wall by another. His sword clattered to the ground. He sprang back up, his hands stiffened like pangas of flesh, and chopped the first man in the sides of his neck, sending him sprawling. Lalyani kicked one in the chest, the force of the blow leaving him doubled over. She whirred her staff, catching one in the jaw so hard several of his teeth rattled to the ground like dice. Still conscious, his body opted to collapse anyway.

  Dinga side-stepped the punch he knew was coming and grasped the last man’s wrist to flip him over his shoulder. He leapt toward the man, cuffing him with his panga hilt. The blow staggered the man back into the arms of his companions. Re-thinking their strategy, they retreated down the length of the alley and around the corner. Though only a heartbeat behind them, by the time Dinga, Lalyani, and Gerard rounded the corner, the men had disappeared.

  So, their first quest together had begun...

  ...though the sun slipped behind the mountain, leaving only a cold wind scoring his and Gerard’s backs. The air grew thin. There was no room to take in its beauty nor the vista below them. Dinga fixed his attention on his next handhold, concentrating on the long slope running along the crestline. His fingers inched along the ledge above him, for any sturdy projection. Though still lean, he missed the youth he had once been. Or at least the lesser weight he had once carried.

  Not for the first time, Dinga began to doubt his quest.

  The night stretched into an aching territory of shadows. The silence and solitude, away from the noise of the demands of his village, away from the noise of the press for time, allowed him a moment. Being alone, the sense of loss overwhelmed him, beginning to undo him as if the jutting crags beneath his feet had been uprooted. Sculpted by the silence, he became more completely who he was. Grief seeped under his skin like rainfall on arid soil.

  Dinga crawled over the summit. His arms hung numb at each side, his legs unsteady with each step, uncertain that he even was walking. The weight on his back pressed him. Tentatively, he moved across the plateau. The night sky hid the starlights, as if veiled behind a great curtain. The singular darkness swathed him, cold and unforgiving. He strained his eyes for any break in the seamless night. The world all shadows and whispers, lost in the gravid darkness, he was barely able to see where he was. He knew to trust the darkness to take him where he needed to go. His legs buckled and he collapsed. He reached out for something solid but only found the ground. A grim silhouette staggered toward him, and Gerard crumpled exhausted next to him. Too tired to do much more than lie there, Gerard turned to him.

  “Tell me a story of your village,” Gerard squeezed out between gulps of air.

  “Your tricks to get me talking won’t help you.”

  “You love the sound of your own voice. Besides, you can’t help yourself—you can’t resist the pull of stories. It’s in your blood. Your very nature. So, again, I ask you to continue the story of your village.”

  Dinga took a slow breath, his mind drifting to a faraway corner of his heart until he found the loose strand to further spin his tale.

  One day the boy, now a young man, settled into his camp for the night. He had just set off from his village. His father, the mansa, was dying. He knew one day he would be a mansa, but not today and not soon. For it was said ‘Four times Wagadu stood there in all her splendor. Four times she turned her face. Four times Wagadu changed her name. Four times she disappeared and was lost.’ He had much to learn and more to prove until then.

  Thinly muscled, burned dark by the sun, the left half of his body was a maze of tattoos, lines broken by dots. A small nose ring matched his brass armlet. The handle of a panga blade jutted from his belted loincloth. Knowing that he was no longer alone, he reached for his spear.

  A young woman emerged from the surrounding shadows. His wide eyes took in her beauty. Slender bodied, long-limbed, tall and proud, her head held high. A spear slung through her kaross, she raised her arms to signal that she was no threat. A broad girdle of bronze beads could not hide that she was heavy with child. There was something hauntingly familiar about her face.

&nbs
p; “Do you remember me?” Slow and deliberate, she entered the light of the campfire and sat down across from him.

  “I could not forget.” Unable to bear her face, the young man’s focus drifted back to the flames. “I once believed you to be ogbanje.”

  “Ogbanje?” She threw her head back in laughter. A wild, inviting thing. “My mother was never named. My people are the Mo-Ito now.”

  “I know of them.” For the Mo-Ito were a mixed-race people who accepted any who wandered into their community as long as they followed the Path. “You speak Mande well.”

  “I speak many languages. Where do you travel to?”

  “In search of Jenne-jeno. Perhaps. I have not made up my mind.”

  “The fabled jeweled city?”

  “So men claim.” The young man stirred the kindling in the flames. “If you are no ogbanje, then who are you? Why does my family suffer as if a plague has struck whenever you are around?”

  “For that you would have to ask your father. Our father.”

  She let the words hang in the air between them and sink in. The young man studied her face. As if knowing his intent, she leaned into the light of the campfire. The amber light of the flames lit her face, distorting it with eerie shadows. Slowly he began to see it. Despite her near-sable complexion compared to his more russet one, the ghosts of his ancestors played along her face. The arch of her eyebrows. The familiar flare of her nostrils. The strangely angular shape of her jaw. And she had her father’s—their father’s—eyes.

  “Did he... make you leave?” The words caught in his throat. He recalled his father’s words: “I have dealt with the... ogbanje.”

  “Once I was old enough to ask questions. I spent a lot of time around my elders in their weaving circles. Elder women love their gossip, especially when they think no one else of consequence is around. And children are rarely considered of consequence, though they have great consequence.” She shifted about her weight.