CHAPTER 27
Tambo’s Heart
Nasomi’s days and nights became a routine of four things: riding, walking, resting under trees and eating little food. Her strength began to wane easily, her daily distances decreased. There was a pain in her bones, her skin itched, and she stank of sweat. Buyechi had a tiny flute similar to the one Mihide in Mishi had. He blew on it often, making sweet reedy sounds that seemed to come from anywhere but the flute. The sounds soothed her, made her forget her troubles for a moment.
She was losing sleep despite being exhausted, and the little she could catch bothered her with dreams of world events that mattered little to her: Refugees from Micha made a slow exodus northward. A tattooed group of mercenaries along the Gold Road went on a crusade to terminate the Gaula in Ao’Pan.
The dreams that mattered brought her no comfort. Tambo was still too far from her reach as the Bride sped him away to get away from her enemies. Nasomi spoke to him through his dreams, but he wasn’t entirely convinced it was truly her he was talking to and not a conjuring of his dreams. He told her where he was, where they were going, what Reema was doing. She encouraged him to hold on to hope, to stay alive.
“I am coming,” she told him. “I am coming.”
Her son Meron was now a mage. He had saved Prince Keyula’s life by pushing him off the path of a runaway wagon that would have killed the prince. The king was so pleased he announced right then that Meron would be the new mage. Kaan and Thorro were not pleased and whispered their sentiments against the decision. The king was adamant.
“You two are getting old,” he said rather loudly in the public. “This is what you have always wished of me. We need honorable people like this boy to protect the royal family and to be the next generation of the Mage Council. Teach him everything you know.”
Many a night, Nasomi watched Meron poring over tomes, scrolls, and tablets of Majen under dim firestone light. She was ashamed of seeing her son in a heavy grey robe, practicing how to move objects with his mind. She blamed her absence, hated herself for it, pushed herself beyond her limits to catch up to Tambo. But she never went into the boy’s dreams, nor his sister’s. She wanted them to get to know the real her when she got back. Not this thing she had become. Oracle. Seer. Dreamwitch. Dreamwalker.
On the twenty-fourth evening of her journey, exhausted from riding over twenty miles and in need of sleep from having eaten too many num-nums and raw mushrooms the warriors had picked in the woods, she fell into a dream of Tambo and company surrounded by their pursuers.
The jackal had an expression on its snout that looked like a smirk. The old man held a rather small spear. One of the twins set the toddler down from her back, and he sat on the ground and played with dirt.
“We’ve caught you at last,” the jackal said.
“What do you want from me?” Reema said. “Go away or I’ll kill—”
“Let’s see you try,” the jackal replied, springing into action. Reema made a defensive stance and the jackal was caught in an invisible snare.
Tambo ducked as the old man threw his little spear.
“Fight, Tambo!” Reema shouted as her shadow, oily, darker than night, expanded toward the jackal. Tambo engaged in an exchange of fists with the old man, though his face showed he would rather be running away. The old man was stronger than he looked. He gave Tambo a punch to the jaw that sent him to the ground. Tambo rolled away from the old man’s aimed stomp.
Gweuka and the lynxes rolled on the ground, biting and scratching at each other. One got on Gweuka’s back, biting at his neck. But the hyena had grown into a big beast. He shook the lynx off. Gweuka slapped away its companion with his paw, bound at it, tore off a chunk of its flesh.
The Bride and jackal were going at each other with their shadows, exuding a power that threatened to knock Nasomi awake.
The toddler faced away from the battle, etching silly symbols on the ground with a twig, unbothered by anything.
The young women clapped each other’s hands and patted their thighs as though they were playing a childhood game. Then they turned to face Reema, cupping their hands as if they held stones in them. They hurled the invisible stones at Reema. They hit her with real force, and her temple was bleeding as she fell down.
Reema stretched out a hand toward the twins as they faced each other to conjure more magic, shoving them away, but they gathered themselves and resumed the hand clapping.
The jackal bit into Reema’s hand. It would have snapped it off if her shadow didn’t elongate to slap it off. The shadow sprung to where Tambo and the old man fought over the spear. Even as Tambo kicked away the old sorcerer, Reema’s shadow yanked the spear off Tambo’s hands, thrust it toward the twins. It went through one’s back and out of her chest.
The other screamed as her sister fell, thrashed and died. She came after Reema, physically pulling at her hair and slapping her. “Leave her to me!” the jackal shouted. His shadow grabbed the girl’s feet, pulled her to the ground and away from Reema. “Leave her to me!”
She scampered away, went to the body of her companion, and wailed.
Gweuka was ripping the remnant lynx apart. He had so many scratches on his body he looked like he had a fur coat of red stripes. He slashed at bit at the lynx with such fury that if it were possible for Nasomi to close her eyes in this form, she would have.
After the lynx lay in gory pieces, Gweuka came after the old man who had Tambo in his grip. The old man let go of Tambo, summoned the spear, which came flying into his hand. He and the hyena circled each other.
“You lied!” the weeping twin screamed. “You said she was a nothing, but she’s powerful. Look what she did to Arize. Look at the size of her hyena.”
“Go then, coward,” the jackal replied. It was clawing against an invisible cage the Bride had conjured.
Reema’s veins bulged, making her look uglier, as she concentrated on keeping the cage potent. The jackal slashed hard and Reema was thrown backward.
“I will get all the glory myself, and shame you all!” the jackal screamed.
The young woman heaved up her dead sister and carried her away from the scene.
“Are you going to run, too, Malwi?” the jackal asked the old man, who shook his head and walked away in the same direction the twin had taken.
“And you, Kamo? Will you be a coward, or will you lend me your power?”
The toddler stood up, and there was an eerie buzz in the air. “I will help,” he said. Even his voice was that of a toddler. With every tiny step he took toward the battlers, the buzz increased in the air. The shapes he had been drawing in the sand were moving. Thrashing like cut-off tails of lizards.
Reema’s shadow wobbled and drew back toward her. Her face was twisted in shock. “Help me, Gweuka, Tambo. I can’t move!”
Gweuka made to charge at the toddler but was caught mid-air and thrown hard to the ground. Tambo started to scream and pat his thighs like something was squashing his legs.
There was a whoosh, the sound of shattering terracotta, and Reema’s shadow was no more. She flopped to the ground. The jackal bawled in triumphant laughter. It sauntered to Reema, placed a foot on her chest. “You thought you could have the best of me, Chonse the Jackal, first disciple of Ituntulu. I will have my vengeance. Bring me the spear, Kamo.”
Gweuka stood up, turned about as though chasing his own tail. He let out a whoop. “I am free. I am free!” He took a few steps as though to confirm this.
“Finally, I am free. We’re free, Tambo.”
Tambo examined himself, wiggled his fingers, moved his legs. “We’re free,” he said in disbelief.
Gweuka bound away, giggling. But then he stopped and looked back.
Tambo was hesitating. He watched as the toddler picked the spear, walked back to the jackal. Reema couldn’t move, and she tried hard to.
“Stab her,” Chonse said to the toddler. “Stab her good, let all the power she’s gathered flow out of her.” He was grinning down at Reema. “Then I can eat her.”
“Tambo, no!” yelled Gweuka as Tambo dashed at the toddler. He grabbed the spear off the tiny hands, kicked the toddler away and threw the spear at Chonse. The spear didn’t fly straight, but as it turned, its shaft struck Chonse in the snout.
That was enough for Reema. She jumped up and all her power returned. Her shadow thickened. It bulged out, caught and pinned the jackal down. Reema reached into her upper garment and brought out something shiny. A large golden coin. She pressed it on Chonse’s head. “You’re mine now!” she said.
The toddler made to run away, but Reema’s shadow took hold of him, lifting him by the leg and bringing him toward her. She placed the coin onto his forehead, claimed him. He became as obsequious as a sheep.
Reema went to Tambo, threw her hands around him, pecked him on the lips. “I knew you still cared. Thank you. Thank you so much, my love!”
Gweuka came timidly before Reema. He flashed an angry look at Tambo.
“You’re still with me, Gweuka,” Reema said. “Until I get what I want.”
She turned to the two sorcerers as she put the coin back into her bosom. “I can kill you all, right here. But my husband has seen enough killing today. He may think evil of me. You are under me now, and you will pay for trying to kill me.” She pondered. “You will do only what I tell you. I want something, a magic of youth and beauty. You will help me find it. Everywhere. You will never rest until you find what I am looking for. You hear?”
“We hear,” said the jackal grudgingly. “As you say.”
“Go, now. Leave my presence before I change my mind and kill you.”
The toddler climbed onto the jackal’s back. When they were out of view, Reema held herself and sat on the ground. She breathed. “I thought I was surely dead.”
“I told you death will come for you.”
She smiled. “But you rescued me. I see I still have your heart.”
“No, you do not. Free me. You owe me everything now, and I must be the one to demand things.”
She spoke softly. “I only want to have myself whole again, my love. My quest continues, and with you by my side.”
“So, I am still bound to your whims?”
She gave him a pained look. “I still need you, Tambo. I trust you, you should know that. I can’t trust this hyena here, but don’t feel bad if it seems I am treating you the same. Look, it’s been a hard night. We need to rest to have enough strength for tomorrow. Come, help me up. Let’s find shelter.”
Nasomi watched as Tambo helped Reema walk to a ditch of a dried-up river. At her request, he ripped part of his breeches and bandaged her bleeding arm. Nasomi watched them fall asleep.
She went into Tambo’s dream. “What were you thinking?”
He sat on a throne, dressed in a heavy garb trimmed with gold, and all his fingers glimmered with moonstone rings.
“Nasomi?” He looked confused as the world about them turned to blackness and he was a simple man in tattered clothes.
“You were free! You could have run away!”
He looked down. “I am sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You don’t know what you were thinking? I can’t believe you, Tambo. Do you know how much I am suffering just to get to you? You had a chance. We would have been coming to each other finally.”
He sat down, scratched his hair.
“Why didn’t you do leave her, Tambo?”
He didn’t answer.
“I am asking a question. Why didn’t you leave her?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” He stood up, turned away from her, but she appeared in front of him. “I don’t know. I wanted to go. Right there, I had the freedom I have been longing for, but when I saw she would be killed, I don’t know what led me... I couldn’t have let her be killed.”
“Do you still have feelings for her?”
“What? No, no, no. You shouldn’t be thinking like that. I want to come home to you. I think of that all the time.”
“Be honest with me, Tambo. Is it because she is next to you and I am not?”
“Well, you’re not.”
“Tambo!”
“You want me to be honest. Every night I dream I am talking to you, but how can I be sure? I love you, Nasomi. I love only you. I did not want things to turn out this way. I fear I may die out here. I fear I am going mad with dreams of talking to you.”
“It is I, Tambo. You’re talking to the real me.”
“Forgive me, Nasomi, my wife. I am in pain, in anguish. I think my death will come soon, out here in the wilderness.”
“You could have run. I told you I am coming for you.”
“Should I have let them kill her? Should I?”
It was her turn to be silent. They didn’t speak or face each other for a long moment.
“I have to wake up now,” he said. “I need to make some water.”
She was pushed out of his mind. She watched him get up, look at the sleeping Bride and the hyena, sigh, and stand to go to a bush. When he was done urinating, he turned and was face to face with the hyena.
“Ah! You scared me, Gweuka.”
“You’re a fool, that’s what you are!” the hyena said.
“Look, I know. I misjudged. I let my humanity get in the way and I rescued her.”
“I wish I could eat you right now. We were free! We would be on our way to our homes right now, but you… you… what is your problem?”
“I am sorry, beast! You’re angry with me, my wife is angry with me. I will run the next chance I get, is that what you want to hear?”
“This is it, fool. Your other chance. Are you ready to do it right this time?”
“I can’t take the coin from her. How many times should I tell you? She’s too alert. She probably can hear what you’re thinking right now.”
“She’s exhausted, bleeding. She’s in deep sleep. She won’t hear you. I need that coin, Tambo. You need it.”
“Very well,” Tambo said, with resolve. “I will get it. Let’s end this.”
He crept back to where Reema slept. She was snoring lightly, looking peaceful where she leaned against the edge of the ditch. He lowered himself with as little noise as he could make. He knelt before her, stretched his hand ever so slowly, toward her bosom.
She opened her eyes. “My love,” she said. “Is it morning yet?”
He withdrew his hand. “Not yet. I failed to sleep.”
She stretched and yawned. “I am awake now, and hungry. I have an idea, as well. We can use the fur of the lynxes to make some garments. I would so love a cloak. It may be cold where we are going.”
“Let me get to it right away.”
“Sit, rest. Do it in the morning. Where is that hyena? Gweuka!”
The hyena showed itself from a bush.
“Fetch us some foo—” She examined him. “Come here, Gweuka. I can sense something is off.”
“Nothing is off.”
“Come here, I said!” She prodded him with her eyes. “There have to be no more secrets between us, Gweuka. I know there’s a part of your mind you have hidden from me from the start. I can sense it burning in you. I want to know.”
“There is noth—”
Her shadow whipped out arms, gripped the hyena’s limbs and neck, dragged him closer to Reema. “Tell me this desire of yours you have never wanted me to see.”
The hyena struggled for a long time but soon gave up. “We wanted to kill the dragon and take his place. I and Loshui.”
The Bride squinted at him for a while and then burst into laughter. She laughed so hard she held her ribs. She clutched her stomach and stooped as the waves of laughter faded.
“Don’t kill me with your jests.”
“I am not jesting,” Gweuka said. “The dragon is real.”
She laughed again, a little more controlled this time. “Is that so, my dear idiot? Where then would you say he is, if you believe he exists?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want the truth!” the Bride yelled, her shadow spreading around the hyena’s body.
“I speak the truth. Look inside. I have opened myself.”
The Bride put away her shadow. She sat down next to Tambo, taking in breaths to calm herself. She was quiet for a long time, pondering.
Tambo said, “I hope you are not having a bad idea right now.”
“No,” she replied softly. “Tambo, have you ever considered that I really loved you? And still do? That all this is just for you to see that?”
“Reema, stop.”
“You must see this. There’s nowhere I wouldn’t go — nowhere I haven’t gone — to prove my love for you. I will show you, when this is all over. I will give it all up, all this power, just because I love you and want to be with you.”
Tambo looked away.
“Gweuka?” the Bride said.
“I am listening,” said the hyena.
“Help me with my mission. When it is done, I will give you your freedom, and you can go hunt your dragon all you want. Say that you’re with me.”
“I am with you.”