CHAPTER 25
In the Kingdom of Bones

When the barrier shattered, Nasomi found Reema, Tambo, and the hyena moving through a foggy, soggy forest. It was daylight but the canopies of the tall, moss-covered trees were so thick they blocked the sunlight. Cicadas skirled in the trees, frogs croaked beneath. A cave appeared at the end of the path, as though it came to them rather than them to it.

Reema sniffed. She smiled. “This is the place. Can you smell that, Gweuka?”

“I can,” croaked the hyena. “Magic. Centuries of witching work.”

The form of a man appeared at the cave mouth.

“I saw you coming,” he said, his deep voice emanating from the ground as well as his mouth. He was muscular, should have been a wrestler instead of a sorcerer. He wore chains and bungles made from bones and teeth, and his eyes were white as though he were blind.

“I was told you are the most powerful man in this area,” Reema said, stepping forward.

“You are no hag,” the man said. He drew closer. “You’re a girl, with so much desire. I see it on you. And you…” He examined Tambo. “You are not a free man. I see your bonds. For a sacrifice, I can free you.”

“I am the one with a request,” Reema said. “Get your face away from him.”

He went to the hyena, and his eyes went wide. “A wizard, most powerful. How did you come to be…?” He turned to look at Reema warily, as if realizing he’d underestimated her. “What do you want that you possibly can’t get yourself?”

“Beauty. Youth.”

The man sneered. “Then you shouldn’t have become a witch. The nature of magic is to take away, not to give.”

“As you said, I am no hag. I am young and beautiful beneath this sheath of ugliness. I only wish for my true form to be restored. It is possible, I have heard stories.”

“In that case, I have something for you. But it will cost you. Give me your familiar.” He grinned, teeth yellow as corn kernels.

He sensed, too late, the presence of Reema’s shadow rise behind him. It towered over him, and when he turned, it sprung arms to grasp him.

“I can feel what you have in there,” Reema said. “I will take it myself.”

The man showed fear, which quickly morphed into fury. “Let me go, silly girl. I am Ituntulu, the devourer of corpses, the ruler of the sorcerers, conqueror of—”

Reema didn’t let him finish. Her shadow hurled him against the rock of the cave. He coughed blood. The shadow picked him up like he was a piece of sweet potato, thrust him to the ground. “Eat him, quickly,” Reema said to Gweuka. “Devour his power before he can resist.”

The hyena was upon the sorcerer, ripping off his flesh even as he screamed. Tambo vomited as he turned to look away.

“Reema, you promised you wouldn’t do such,” he groaned.

“He had to be subdued, my love,” she said, full of remorse. “Don’t think I enjoy this. If this is what we’ve been looking for, it will stop today. I will give it all up, that is still my promise.”

Gweuka’s body was expanding as he devoured the flesh and power of Ituntulu. Reema stared at her palms and flexed her fingers, feeling her own magic becoming stronger. She walked into the cave.

It was lit by a crude fire torch pinned in the ground. The cave floor was rough, uneven. Skeletons hang from the walls, the bones clinking in the breeze that wafted in. In the darker part of the cave was a mat upon which were a miscellany of gourds, charms, bones.

Reema picked up each, felt their weight, and sniffed at them. She tossed those she deemed worthless, gave to Tambo those she wanted to keep.

“This can poison entire villages.” She threw it away. “This one can heal deep wounds, we might need it.” She gave it to him. “This one can bind other people, but not as powerful as what I can do. Useless. This one chases away bad dreams. This one… this one does not reveal itself to me. It might be what we’re looking for.” She kept it herself, thrusting it in her bosom.

“This one can take away wrinkles. Interesting.” She gave it to Tambo. She went through all the items and they came out with a dozen.

Outside the cave, something was amiss. The cicadas and frogs were silent, and the fog was thinning away. Shapes started to appear: human and animal. They came through the fog, or jumped down from the trees, or rose up from the ground.

“Run!” Reema said, and was the first to dash away.

They ran in between the trees, beside a rocky hill, ducking and going around overreaching and thick bushes. When the pursuers proved to be equally agile, coming at them from all directions, Reema commanded Gweuka to crouch. She and Tambo got onto his back. The hyena was big enough to carry them now. He was fast, too. He was soon way beyond the reach of their pursuers.

When they were far and safe, Reema said they could stop and rest. They made beds of thick leaves, reclined on them. The moon was full and bright, casting its beautiful light upon a fertile land. Nasomi saw among the wild plants numerous rows of corn stalks that looked to be untouched for many years. There were trees all around, tall and short, bearing all types of fruit, none of which had been picked. Many had rotted and fallen, some sprouting saplings.

White things, entangled in the vegetation, gleamed in the moonlight. Bones of people and animals, dead for years. Nasomi looked about, saw skulls peeking in mounds of sands, hand bones and leg bones lying far from skulls, perhaps dragged and half-eaten by animals. Somehow she could see the deeply buried bones too, as if they were calling to her, crying in anguish for her to listen to the tragic end of their lives. These were the bones of the people who had tried to return and rebuild the kingdom, but death reigned here, and only sorcerers could flourish in such a place.

Nasomi shook their lure off, focused on the group she had followed. She watched Tambo and Gweuka fall asleep. Reema didn’t sleep. She had a look of worry on her face.

Seeing that the other two were asleep, Reema retrieved the mysterious charm from her bosom. She closed her eyes, whispered something. The night seemed to get darker. Wisps of thin dark smoke broke out from Reema’s body. She took in a long anticipatory breath and opened her eyes. She waited.

She stared at the charm in her hand. Then she threw it away. Reema turned about, staring at the space Nasomi was occupying. “It’s you,” she said, taking a breath. “You scared me.”

Tambo spoke as he walked through Nasomi’s apparition, “Is that supposed to be a joke? I’ve got one for you: I see the charm didn’t work.” He grinned, a hint of tiredness on his face.

“No matter. We still go on.”

“Why can’t you give up, Reema? Mhmm? Nothing you ever do works. I can’t take this anymore.”

“Tambo, Tambo, my love.” She touched his face. “We have traveled too far to stop now. I have so much to prove to you. Just wait and see.”

He shrugged, throwing up his hands in exaggeration. “I will watch you die, you know that? Someone powerful enough is going to kill you. And then I’ll be free to go back home. That’s all I look forward to now.”

She gave a short mirthless laughter. “After all that you’ve seen me done, you think I’m easy to kill? And what I have gained here is beyond what many gain in a lifetime.”

His voice was higher now: “I thought all you wanted was to restore your beauty!”

She shook her head. “Of course. But I will not let anyone think weak of me again once I have my smooth skin back. I can’t let myself be an ordinary woman.”

“You want to be a witch forever?”

“I didn’t say ‘witch’. But ‘powerful’ is what I mean. There’s a difference. I know you don’t believe me, but I don’t want to be killing people. I want their respect, admiration. They’ll write about me on slates, talk about me in the histories.”

He pulled his own ear toward her, mocking her that he was listening.

“Tambo, this will end soon. You know I love you. We needn’t fight each other anymore. I want you by my side, to build with me something amazing.”

“All I have seen you do—”

She touched his cheek. He didn’t seem to have the will to move his face away. “I can’t be the Bride anymore. I hate that name. It makes me the person who could never be her own woman, who could never stand on her own feet. I must give myself a new name. I am thinking Reema the Beauty, Reema the All-Powerful.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” Tambo said, slapping his forehead. “I understand you now.”

A smile disappeared as quick as it appeared on her face, and she squinted at him to see whether he was joking or not. “You do?”

“Yes! You are a child! Oh, Mara help me, you are a child who doesn’t yet understand how the world works! You think this is some bedtime story, about a princess who was cursed with ugliness and she went on a quest to find her beauty back and defeat all her enemies. And she got her beauty back and became so powerful the whole world bowed before her. And the man who said bad things about her — a man she kept under a spell if we have to mention all the details – this man will realize his mistake, he’s been cruel to her, mocked her. Then he will bow before her in all her glory and take her hand, show her affection, say he was blind to have not seen she was all he needed. Because you’ll be the all-powerful, glorious one. Right? Right?”

“Tambo, where is all this coming from?” She was shaking her head repeatedly as though he were the child. “Go back to sleep, I need time to think.”

“We are going to finish this here and now! I am not going to let—”

“I said go sleep!” Tendrils of shadow wafted from her back.

He shut up, turned obediently and walked away. Reema clenched her fists and let out an angry cry. Nasomi drew closer and Reema jumped back. “Who is there?” she demanded. She threshed her hands about as though she were chasing away flies.

Something pushed Nasomi backward. Reema laughed. “It is only you, dreamwitch. I see you’ve broken the veil again.” Reema spoke to the air: “I am glad you can see this, dreamwitch. I want you to see.”

Nasomi came at Reema from behind, and Reema turned sharply. She waved her hands and an invisible force fought against Nasomi. Nasomi tried to say something, like how she spoke to Kanguya.

Reema? Hear me, you witch.

But Nasomi was still just a perception with no actual voice to communicate with.

“Watch all you want, dreamwitch!” Reema said. Watch me win while you fail. This is all your fault, farm girl. But watch me rise from the dirt you threw me onto. Watch me reclaim everything you took from me. Watch me become the queen of the world while you sit there, wherever you are, sobbing at your unremarkable life. Nobody brings Reema down. Nobody!”

She threw her hands wide apart, and the barrier shut again. Nasomi was pushed up and away from Reema. Nasomi tried to return, but the veil was strong.

A cacophony of voices and sounds of wild animals caught her attention. She swooped down and came near to the cave where Reema killed Ituntulu. She found herself in the midst of a council of sorcerers. It comprised a jackal, two lynxes, an old man, two younger women, and what looked like a big-headed toddler. They didn’t seem to sense her.

The jackal was speaking. “She can’t be that powerful,” it said. “Ituntulu was caught unaware. That is all.”

“We cannot think of her as weak, either,” the old man said. “If she could catch Ituntulu unaware, she is someone to reckon with.”

“And we’ll reckon!” the jackal said. “Don’t be too soft, old man. We must avenge our master. We cannot let the witch who killed Ituntulu go away.”

“Of course, Chonse. But first, we must choose who will be our new leader and replenish our power.”

The jackal scoffed as though the answer was obvious.

One of the young ladies lifted her hand. “I propose Chonse the jackal.” The other lady said the same.

“We choose Malwi,” said both lynxes in unison.

“I choose myself,” the jackal said, glaring at the old man.

“I choose myself,” Malwi said.

“That makes three each,” one of the women said. They looked alike, these two. Twins. Nasomi remembered Reema’s hyenas had also been twins. “Now, Kamo must break the decision.”

They all looked at the toddler, who was enchanted in chewing a finger. They all leaned toward him, anticipating his vote. He opened his mouth… and sneezed. Then he returned to chewing his finger and dozing.

One of the young women gave him a slap on the back, too hard for a baby but it didn’t seem to bother this one. “Kamo, you must choose.”

He removed his finger from his mouth and pointed at the jackal.

The jackal whooped. “Yes! Kamo knows what I am made of! Now, listen here all of you. As your new leader, this is my decision: we will all go hunting down this witch. We go hunting her tonight.”