CHAPTER 20
The Madness
The moving was too slow for Nasomi. Every mile seemed to be an infinite distance. They pushed the horses as hard as they could. They rested little. They kept as straight a direction as terrain could allow. Wakani became glum. He brooded, didn’t speak much, and often scratched the back of his head out of habit.
“I know this is beyond what I had intended,” Nasomi said to him, seven days from the Redland. She’d seen his agitation, had overridden it with her hope of catching up to the Bride, had ignored it as she tried to ignore her own growing frustration.
He gave a weak smile, as if saying It’s well, My Lady. He scratched the back of his head, didn’t even look at her, as though the rolling hills ahead were a marvel to behold.
“Wakani, talk to me.”
“The horses, my lady. They are thin, tired. We drive them hard through bad territory, they have nothing much to eat. What will My Chief say when I return them like this?”
“I will explain to him. And you? Tell me straight, how this is affecting you.”
He scratched his head. “I... I will do as I am told.”
“It’s too much for you.”
“I have a daughter, three years old now. Her birthday was yesterday. I thought we would be back by now. She must be wondering where I am.”
“What is her name?”
That brought a smile to his face. “Khuya. Sweet little girl.”
Kanguya the kowasa appeared, dragging the carcass of a rabbit. Wakani jumped off his horse, picked up the rabbit where Kanguya dropped it. He skinned it with his ax. Nasomi got down her horse as well, went to sit under a tree. She drew up her knees and hugged herself. Her bones ached from the much traveling and sleeping on hard ground and on tree branches.
“I would have gathered three copper coins by now,” Wakani went on. “I pray the house I promised to buy by end of Ra hasn’t been bought yet.”
“Take me up to Mifirhana,” Nasomi said. “You can turn from there.” Kanguya came by her side. She stroked his back. The kowasa wagged happily.
“I don’t want you to think I would abandon you,” Wakani said.
“Don’t worry about me. Turn back from Mifirhana if you have to. I have Kanguya here.” And my dreams, she didn’t add, rubbing her belly as if she could reach the usual feeling inside.
The dreams. They were frequent, even without her whispering in Majen. And they frightened her. Among a few random ones of people and places she didn’t recognize, there was a recurring dream of a boy held captive in an old well. His unending cries were unbearable to hear. He coughed and spat from the choking smells of rotten things down there, as well as his own urine and feces. Once every day, a silhouette opened the well cover, dropped food for the boy, closed the well again.
Then there were the dreams of Tambo and the Bride. Reema constantly professed her love for Tambo. He replied with scowls and the pouting of his lips. She bathed him, cropped his hair, shaved his beard, fed him. He could speak and think of his own will but was helpless when it came to the rest of his body. His hands and feet moved according to Reema’s whims. He couldn’t look away when she bathed or chose to disrobe whenever she desired. He couldn’t refuse when she told him to build them a shelter when they stopped to rest. He couldn’t stop walking even when his body ached because she said to walk.
When Wakani went off to gather firewood, there remained a lonesome milieu. Nasomi spoke to Kanguya, more to keep her tormenting thoughts at bay.
“I simply watch as everything I love is taken away from me. I feel everything, see everything. I see the hatred, the helplessness, the greed, the evil… I can do nothing about it, Kanguya. Nothing. No one hears me shout in a telling, I cannot touch or move nothing. I am not there inasmuch as I am there. I am more invisible than a ghost. I hate it.”
Kanguya wagged his yes tentacle, curled up and fell asleep. Nasomi sighed. “It has to end.” She fell asleep and in the ensuing dream, she watched Reema and company climb down a rocky hill, head toward a deep blue lake in the distance.
Nasomi and Wakani covered the rest of the way to Mifirhana in three weeks. Wakani suggested they cut through by going straight eastward, but thick vegetation forced them northward, and adjacent high hills constrained them to take a winding route. Nasomi almost screamed in delight when the lake, and the town Mifirhana by its edge, came into view.
Mifirhana was hot, humid and hilly. Dwellings had been built in such a way as to avoid cutting down too many trees; so Mifirhana was both a forest and a town, and Nasomi couldn’t tell its extent.
They left the horses by an inn, walked to a more open marketplace. Nasomi was about to ask after the Bride, when, by happenstance, she was face to face with Reema and Tambo.
The two moved among the clustered stalls like a man with his aging mother. Reema carried a basket of what she’d picked out in her bag. When she saw Nasomi, her mouth went wide.
“You!”
“Nasomi?” Tambo said. His expression was a medley of surprise and delight.
Nasomi reached into her bag, found the wrapped knife at the bottom. She shook off the wrapping cloth even as she charged at Reema, letting her bag fall off her shoulders. Reema said something to Tambo. He rushed toward Nasomi and caught her, squeezed her knife-holding hand.
“Let me go, Tambo! Let me kill her!”
“I am not doing this.” He twisted her hand so hard some bones cracked. “Reema, make me stop! I am hurting her!”
“Wakani, get her!” Nasomi said. She kicked Tambo in the leg to set herself free, but his grip was firm on her.
Wakani had his ax in his hand. He didn’t move, though. “The old lady? That’s her?”
“That’s her Wakani. Get her now.”
He moved too late. The people around them closed in, placing their hands on Tambo, getting him away from Nasomi.
“What’s going on here?” people demanded.
“You’re hurting the woman!”
“Who is this man who hits a woman?”
“Let’s beat him up.”
They caught Wakani, too, divested him of his ax. There were calls for mob-dispensed justice:
“Sticks and stones!”
“Murderer, thief!”
“Off with his head!”
“He attacked an old lady!”
Nasomi heard thumps, saw fists and kicks flying at Tambo and Wakani. Some sensible people were calling for calm, for a chance to understand what was going on before resorting to violence.
In the midst of the various shouts, Reema’s voice shouted, “Loshui! Gweuka!”
No one took her seriously as she continued calling for Loshui and Gweuka. Then there were cries of dismay and everyone was trampling and stampeding away. The hyenas came to Reema’s side, snarling and snapping their teeth at those who hadn’t run fast enough. The market was soon empty, except for a few brave ones who peeped from hiding spots.
Wakani found his ax. He picked it up and threw it at the Bride. One of the hyenas jumped and snatched it from the air in its mouth. The other charged at him. He turned to run, but it was too fast for him. It brought him down, and he was screaming as it dragged him by the leg.
“Bring him to me,” Reema said. “I remember you. A servant in the Go palace. Let’s see whom the ax will kill today.” She snatched the weapon from the hyena’s mouth.
Nasomi picked her bag, rifled for the leather pouch containing the potion. “Quick, drink this!” She untied the fastening and brought it to Tambo’s mouth. “It will set you free.”
“Tambo, shut your mouth!” Reema cried. She was now looking their way.
He shut his mouth so hard Nasomi heard his teeth snap together.
“Slap her.”
The back of his hand came too quick for Nasomi’s reaction. Her vision darkened, her ear rung. Her limbs became weak, she couldn’t hold herself together. The world spun. She felt the back of her head hit the ground.
When she could see better, Reema was standing above her, looking down at her with a hatred that could roast a pig. She stroked the ax shaft as she spoke.
“He was mine and will always be. Should I prove it to you?”
She threw the ax away, picked up the potion pouch. Much of it had spilled out. She sniffed at it, made a disgusted face. “Here, Tambo, take it.”
Tambo came close, received the pouch.
“Drink it,” Reema said.
Tambo lifted it to his mouth.
“Wait, stop!”
He stopped.
“Spill it all to the ground.”
Nasomi watched as all her hopes of freeing Tambo poured out of the pouch, seeped into the soil. She cursed, “Swallow you, Reema!” She got up and threw a slap at Reema. Reema caught her hand. And for a heartbeat, her hand felt warm where Reema held it. Reema let go quickly as though she’d just touched a hot cinder, then gave Nasomi a burning slap of her own.
“Mine, I have told you. He will love me, like he loved me before, and give me children. And you won’t be there to ruin it. Tambo, my love, please bring me the knife.”
As Tambo choicelessly picked up the knife, brought it to her, he said, “Please, Reema, don’t do this. She’s my wife, Reema.”
“I am your wife now, Tambo. Where was she when we met, when we planned our future together? She destroyed all that. You have to see that.”
He gave her the knife. “I will do anything you say, just don’t hurt her. She will go back to Nari, and you can take me away. Please. Please.”
Nasomi dashed for Wakani’s ax, but a hyena jumped in her way, snapping its teeth and sending her back to Reema. Wakani was unconsciousness where he lay on the ground, his leg bleeding.
“I will make a small cut then,” Reema said as she brought the knife toward Nasomi’s neck. “A deep one. Something to remind her to never have come in between us again.”
The hyenas blocked Nasomi’s escape. Reema brought the knife closer, and Nasomi reached the limit she could crane her head away. The knife touched her neck.
Something jumped at Reema. She screamed like a scared little girl as she struggled against the kowasa on her back. She must have remembered she was a powerful witch, for she composed herself and a smoky hand from her body grabbed Kanguya and threw him off her.
“Bite her, Kanguya!” Nasomi yelled. “Bite the damned witch!”
The hyenas were upon Kanguya, and all three were rolling on the ground, biting and scratching and snarling at each other. Claws had protruded from Kanguya’s paws, and they reaped deep gushes in the hyenas’ hides. Reema turned back to Nasomi and kicked her in the belly. Nasomi bent, trying to breathe air that she seemed to be unable to find. Reema kicked her again when she fell to the ground.
Nasomi had no more fight left in her. She’d lost. It had all been for nothing. She let all her struggle go, didn’t bother with the pain anymore. She let Reema have her way, only watched as the Bride administered blows and kicks. She saw Reema’s shadow wave, form spikes that crawled toward her. Nasomi didn’t move even as her mind screamed for her to. She didn’t care anymore.
What happened next was something she only made sense of a few months later, when she recalled it. At that moment, her mind was not with her, but her eyes saw and her ears heard: the Bride stopped hitting her, was facing the kowasa in shock. Kanguya had glowing blue light waving on his skin; no, deep in his skin, veins of light; his claws were sharp and long, he thrust them repeatedly into a hyena. And was he slightly bigger in form? Had he just bulged twice his puny size in a matter of heartbeats?
Reema shouted something, her shadow turned toward Kanguya. It shoved the kowasa off the hyena, but it was too late for the hyena. It lay dead. It began to break apart in dry flakes, like ashes blown by the wind, until there was nothing left of it.
Reema screamed. Kanguya got up and came at her. Reema dashed away. So did the other hyena. And Tambo, too, at Reema’s call. Nasomi was left alone, and nothing made sense anymore.
She didn’t know how long it was before she was out of her stupor. All she realized was that she was standing. How she got up—she couldn’t remember. Reema, Tambo, Wakani, Kanguya, the hyenas. None of them were there, and in their place was a growing crowd of strangers. Men, women, children were staring at her, whispering, pointing at her.
She regained some senses, but she was not herself entirely.
“Where is she?” she demanded of the crowd. They gasped and pulled back a bit.
“The witch who took my husband, where is she?” She ran at them, they gave her way. She went to a stall, started pulling a plank out. “You know where she is. You’re hiding her. Kanguya, bite this one.”
She ran back and picked the knife from the ground. She yelled something she didn’t know she could say. A string of mumbles and shrieks. A new language. She even smiled.
“She has run mad,” someone said. “She needs help! Call the Daughters.”
“Kanguya, you silly dog. Why are you not biting these people?” Nasomi laughed at herself. “You’re not a dog. You’re a... a blue thing. Where are you? Kill them, Kanguya! Like you did the hyena.”
The world was an interesting place. It was a mat beneath her. She put her foot on Nari, watched it crumble into dust. She jumped into the Redland, frolicked among the trees. She kicked Mount Lupili from her way.
“I need her,” she said to the people as she danced on Mishi, watching the tiny people vanish as Nin had. “I need to tell her I am sorry—Look!” she said as she jumped over the great desert into Ao’Pan. “Do you see that woman? They are drowning her son to punish her. But they don’t know he’s a god.”
Two women came forward, each taking her by an arm. They carried her away. She spoke to them, in her mumbling language, wondering why no one had ever learned to speak it. It was the best language in the world.
They threw her into a dark room, and she was overwhelmed by fear. “Please!” she begged, banging on the walls of the room. “Please, the room will eat me! Get me out of here!”
The walls were closing in on her, and she screamed and cried. No one came for her. She cowered to a corner, even as the walls kept coming closer, threatening to crush her like a bug. She didn’t know if she slept or imagined things, but she was in a telling.
She was in Reema’s mind, which was full of pain and bitterness. Through Reema’s eyes, she saw Tambo seated on a rock, morose. The remnant hyena was by her side, looking like a lost kitten.
“How?” Reema said out loud. “How was she able to find us?
Tambo looked away.
“You know, don’t you?”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t lie to me, Tambo, I am not in a good mood. Tell me. It’s that natural magic of hers, isn’t it?”
I worked so hard for this, Reema thought. It isn’t fair that she has everything. She sweated not a drop for anything, but she gets a natural magic. Damn the Mara!
“Swallow you, Tambo! She killed Loshui!” She walked to him, grabbed his arm, made him feel pain. “How is she able to find us? How can she command a kowasa?”
He tried to be brave against the pain, but she kept squeezing.
“Tell me!”
“I will tell you! Get your hand off me!”
“Only when you tell me.”
“She dreams things. Sees things in her dreams. The past, the future. Take your hand off me!”
She did. She turned from him. “You could have told me earlier. Now I have to do something about it.”
“What can you possibly do?”
“Something to ensure she will never catch up to us.”