CHAPTER 32
Unbridled Tellings
On the way to Ashge, in moments of rest, Nasomi slipped into tellings whenever she put her staff into her right hand.
Djina asked for every detail. “What is the Bride doing now?”
“How are the children?”
“Didn’t you say some of the Michans want to settle in the Kingdom of Bones?”
“Have you seen the Tunka boy again?”
Nasomi indulged her, describing everything in detail. It was her way of keeping herself sane, keeping her mind and soul and body in one place. Nothing seemed solid anymore, as though the ground, the trees, the jugged hills ahead would break apart into a million pieces and coalesce into other shapes. Reality was a dream.
But she also talked to Djina because she loved Djina’s company. She was glad Djina came after all. It felt good to know that there was someone there for her. She and Djina were like mother and daughter, friends, sisters even.
On the eighth afternoon, they came into a Ndinge village having a festivity after the successful hunt of an elephant. There was much eating, dancing and drinking. Nasomi and Djina tasted some of the village’s banana beer, ignored all inhibition, and imbibed to their fill. They were giddy and chatty through the night and next morning when they stumbled away from the village. They jumped into a stream, splashing in the water like little children.
Nasomi laughed much that day, and the joy settled down in her, rather than disappeared, as the journey went on. She was different, clear-headed, peaceful. Ready to face anything with equanimity and knowing. The tellings were with her through night and day, unbridled from the need to sleep to experience one.
“I teach you to stay calm, and you learn to see the world without dreaming. Nasomi, you fascinate me,” Djina said.
When she took the staff in her right hand again, she was in Nari. It was night there. She found herself floating above the new aqueduct Tambo had taken her to see, having a strange feeling of someone being in trouble. She looked about and saw a figure moving in the aqueduct.
She drew closer and saw it was her son Meron. He was moving up against the rushing water, pushing himself up with his hands on the sides of the duct.
Meron! she called, but he couldn’t hear her.
She went into his mind, and learned why he was up there. He was running away for his life; the other two mages were looking for him. They had sent warriors after him and had the gates of Nari closed. The only way he could get out was to go up the duct and hope no one would find him.
Nasomi felt ashamed that she was not there for her son, that his life was in danger and there was nothing she could do about it.
She persisted in calling him, hoping he’d hear her the way Kanguya had. Meron! Meron!
The boy was shaking in his hands, and looked like he couldn’t push himself further. If he let go, the water would push him down and he could die.
Go on, my son, she said, Don’t let go.
The boy closed his eyes as if resigning himself to his fate.
Don’t let go!
He snapped his eyes open, looked around. “Who is there?” he said. But in his mind, Meron thought, this is silly. I am imagining things. There’s no one here.
Nasomi spoke her ghostly words with increased fervor. It is me, your mother! Go on, son, put strength in your arms and don’t give up.
Somehow, that gave him the will to go on. He pulled himself forward with all his might. Nasomi followed him all the way to the beginning of the duct, where the gigantic wheel poured water in. Meron mustered himself and jumped onto the wheel and let it take him into the river. He swam to the bank, and knelt down to cry.
You’re strong, my boy, Nasomi said. Meron jumped up as though he actually heard her. He ran until he came to the path that led to Mishi. He stopped short when a dark figure appeared at the end of the path. A dark man in all black clothes, and eyes blazing red. Nasomi recognized Nin, the man who had vanished.
“I knew it was you,” Meron said as he stood his ground as the man approached. “You are the one who stole the potion.”
Nin grinned. “It is I, indeed.”
Pebbles rose from the ground at Meron’s feet. They circled him.
“I am not fighting you, Mage,” Nin said. “I know what happened. I can protect you.”
“Why would you want to?”
“Because I know you, more than you think. I have been watching you, Mage. I know we can fight on the same side. I could use your strength. Come, as we speak, there’s a group of bewitched soldiers coming this way.”
“If you are tricking me, shadowman—”
“Nin. Call me Nin. Take my hand, young Mage.”
Nin led Meron to a darker spot, embracing him.
“Hold your breath!” He jumped to the ground, dissolved into it like he was one with the night. Not a single hint was left that they had been there.
Nasomi shifted her staff from her right hand to her left, opening her eyes. She stood in warm daylight. Djina was watching her, solemn, patient. Nasomi nodded to her, tossed the staff back into her right hand. She concentrated on the deep feeling as she closed her eyes, inaudibly chanting, “Ramona, Ramona.”
She came to a room in the Kepe palace. Ramona sat on a stool, carving symbols into an egg-shaped stone. She jerked up, as though she could feel somebody was here.
The door opened. Her grandmother, Tambo’s mother, came in. “What are you doing, child?”
“Trying to write a story.”
“What about?”
Ramona shrugged. “So far, it’s about a boy who can talk to the kowasa.”
Her grandmother smiled. “You should tell me about it. Come, supper is ready.”
Ramona followed after her into the long opulent corridor. “I will go and see my aunt Naena tomorrow. I have something to tell her.”
“What is that, child?”
“Mother is coming back.”
“What?”
“I can feel it, feel her. She’s coming back with Father.”
Her grandmother embraced her sideways, smiled and said, perhaps out of pity. “Then we will make a feast for them when they come.”
“Ramona has become like me,” Nasomi said to Djina when she let go of the staff. “I don’t know if she dreams things, but she has intuition. She senses things.”
“You still won’t visit her dreams, explain everything to her?”
Nasomi shook her head. “I still feel it won’t be right. She is safe at the palace. As for Meron, I will walk into Nin’s dream, tell him to protect the boy. He’s a good man, Nin.”
Nasomi and Djina walked fifteen miles to a mining village. As they rested in the afternoon, Nasomi took her staff again and searched for the Bride.
The Toddler was reporting his failure.
“Fools, fools!” the Bride shouted, flailing her hands and making angry sounds at the sky. “Can no one do a simple thing as killing the dreamwitch?”
“Simple? She killed Chonse. I have never seen natural magic like this before. She almost took all my power. Give me my freedom that I may replenish my power.” Give us the dignity of freeing us.”
The scowl she aimed at him sent him folding into himself.
“I’m undone. I will be laughed at by everyone. Free me,” the Toddler said. “Please. I have nothing more to give you. Don’t send me back to her.” He whimpered.
“Go,” Reema said, dark smoke wafting from her. “You are worthless. Take your freedom and don’t cross my path again.”
He turned to leave but Reema made a pained sound of realization. “Ah! Come here, child!”
“I am not a child!” the Toddler shouted, even as he turned and came back.
“You’re young! How can that be? I want to know what divinations you used.”
The Toddler whimpered again. “Leave me alone. I am exhausted from your errands, and now you mock me. Do you think I wanted to be this way?”
“Know to whom you are talking, Kamo, and answer the question.”
“Same as everyone I know. Human bones, chicken bones, innards of a hyrax. Sacks of gold. A few drops of enemy blood. Sang the song of lightning.”
“I know all that! I have tried it. How does it make you young and do nothing for me?”
“It does different things to people. Chonse turned into a jackal, Andini shriveled till his bones popped out his skin. Others go mad, others die. I have searched for a way to get back to my former self.” He wept. “I hate magic!”
Reema dismissed him. As he went, she turned and ran, till she was alone behind a tree. She bit her knuckles, ground her temples, elbowed the tree.
“Worthless, worthless powers!”
She stopped and listened. Then she flailed her arms about as though she was attacked by a swarm of bees. “Dreamwitch! I feel you. I will find someone stronger to kill you. You know I will. I won’t let you see me defeated.”
She stomped away, Nasomi followed. Tambo had a smirk on his face.
“Are you going to give up now?” he said.
“Never. Wipe that stupid smile off. We’re going.”
His face contorted into foulness. “Going? I am ill, Reema. I cannot move. Are you trying to kill me?”
“Here.” She placed a hand onto his chest. “I have given you some of my power. It will keep you long enough until we get where we are going, and you regain your health. It leaves us vulnerable, but we can handle it.”
“You could do that all along? And you didn’t?”
“Tambo, please. You keep thinking I am evil when everything I do is for you. I am not a healer, the magic I have is not for that. If I keep this long enough on you, it will take from you more than it gives.”
“Well, if you haven’t noticed—”
“This is no time for your quips. Start moving.”
“Gweuka hasn’t come to report about Dunia.”
“You forget that I can always feel Gweuka’s mind. There’s nothing at Dunia.”
Tambo sighed. He moved when she did. The Bride looked up, sensing Nasomi was still about. She clapped once, twisted her hands into fists, jerked them open. A barrier closed, shutting Nasomi away.
Nasomi floated toward Gweuka. The hyena was at Dunia, and it was ancient and crumbling and cracked by vegetation. The great stone edifices looked odd among the flora, as though the forest had been here all along and someone tried to build a city without disturbing it.
Nasomi went into Gweuka’s mind as he skipped over protruding roots and plants that sought to prove they could grow through stone cracks. On either side, he looked up at temples looming over him, each with its own deity represented by a statue at the entrance. A laughing monkey, a curving fish, a naked woman, a naked man, a charging rhino and an elephant with an upraised trunk.
Dunia was teeming with life: birds flitting and tweeting, snakes crawling by ever so slowly like the world belonged to them, spiders weaving webs across the buildings; little rodents that scuttled all over; monkeys jumping in the tree boughs. Gweuka could smell moss, herbs, rot, and possibly a herd of antelopes running away from him.
Dunia was also a dead city. Of humans, there were none. Of the power of the old gods that the Mfunda at Olonge mentioned, there was nothing. The Bride will be disappointed, thought Gweuka, but he knew she was here in his mind. She knew what he knew.
He dashed off to hunt an antelope before he had to go back to the Bride.