CHAPTER 33
The Drumbeat of the Gods

Nasomi and Djina joined a long train of people going into Ashge. Women carried bundles of fruits and vegetables on their heads. Men wielding machetes swatted away flies from chunks of meat hanging on poles over their shoulders, some dripping blood. Boys and girls dragged live goats on leashes, and some of them beat drums and sang songs. Spontaneous dancing broke out at intervals, and people would form circles, sing and dance, break apart again to continue the journey.

Djina was entranced, jumping off the horse to join the dancing circles.

“In Kedjaki, there's no dancing in public,” she told Nasomi. “It’s unholy.”

“But dancing is an expression of joy.”

“Tell my people that, please!” She laughed and went to join another dance. Nasomi lost her in the crowd.

“From Ao, am I wrong?” a young man said in bad Ao’Mu, stepping up to Nasomi. He offered perfume in a small gourd, blinking seductively. “Smell like a flower, guaranteed. It will make every man want you.”

“I like the way I smell for now,” she said.

“You’re here to see the Wenga?”

“The what?”

He gasped as though it was taboo to not know. “The Wenga A’onze. The biggest celebration in the world. To celebrate the coming rains, the new planting season, the new families coming together. There's so much dancing and eating. The girls of age pick up their baskets and choose boys they will marry and the people throw fruits and mud at them and then there's drums and singing all night and eating again and the dead people also watch.”

He told her the Wenga A'onze was an annual festivity and mass wedding among the Ndinge. No wonder the place was bustling. Even more so as they entered the town. People from other Ndinge towns nearby and far were traveling to Ashge, which boasted the biggest version of the Wenga A’onze in the entire Ndinge kingdom.

“All I want is the food,” Nasomi said to the young man, walking away from him. She took the staff in her right hand, searched for Djina. She was at a stall, bargaining with a wine seller. Nasomi paid the young man to take care of her horse, and made her way to where Djina was.

“They gave me some of the wine for free because of how I danced,” Djina said, laughing. She hugged three gourds to her chest. “I love this place!”

“Djina, the Bride is here.”

“Where? Let’s get her.”

“I don’t know. Every time I try to find her, she deflects me. I must find her, before she goes too far. But I don’t kno—”

A girl ran by, bumping into Djina, who almost dropped the gourds.

“Girl! Look where you run!” Three more children dashed past, but Djina saw them coming, stepped away in time.

“Djina. Watch over me. I know what to do.”

Nasomi switched the staff to her right hand, and her consciousness whipped into the running girl. The girl was determined to reach the stall of salted peanuts before her friends could catch her, or else she would have to let them pinch her. Nasomi looked through the girl’s eyes as she ran in between masses of grownups.

Nasomi jumped into a woman carrying a bundle on her head. She was counting how much she would make if all her cassava was bought by tonight. The Wenga was good for business.

Nasomi jumped into a man. He was drunk, feeling rather happy with himself. His daughter was marrying today. He’d raised her well.

She jumped from person to person, saw their memories, felt their emotions, understood their aspirations. Peddlers, children, fathers, mothers, brides and grooms, happy people, sad people. Everyone was her eyes and ears. Until she found Tambo and Reema, walking away from a fish stall. Nasomi went into a fisherman.

Reema turned abruptly and looked at the fisherman. She sensed Nasomi was here. “Is anything the matter?” the fisherman asked. Reema pointed a finger at him, then poked the air. Nasomi felt being shoved away.

“What are you doing?” Tambo asked.

The Bride poked again, and Nasomi was hurled from the fisherman, as though a giant hand pushed her. She came into herself with such force that her body was thrown down to the ground.

Djina shrieked. “Nasomi!”

Nasomi picked herself up, touching the back of her head. People made a circle about her and some looked from her to the wine gourds Djina held. They must have thought she was drunk.

“I’m alright,” Nasomi said. She picked up her staff with her left hand. “Djina, come on!” She broke into a run.

“The wine,” Djina said as she ran awkwardly to catch up.

“Drop it! We must get to them. I promise I’ll buy you some more.”

She heard the gourds fall and break, and Djina gave out a pseudo-whimper.

Nasomi stopped by the fisherman’s stall, looked around. Reema was pulling Tambo by hand into a garden. “There!”

Without her hyena, the Bride wasn’t fast enough. Nasomi and Djina closed up, blundering through an unattended field. The pumpkin leaves were yellow. The sweet potato leaves were ravaged by insects. The corn stalks were stunted and flopped toward the ground. They stepped into rotten pumpkins and a horde of flies buzzed into the air.

“Nasomi?” Tambo shouted when he turned and saw them coming. “You’re here?”

“I am here, my love. Stop, Reema! This has gone too far enough.”

The Bride made a sweeping motion in the air. Nasomi and Djina hit into an invisible wall. Nasomi hit her knee against this barrier, and feverish pain coursed through her.

“She broke my tooth!” Djina said, touching her bloody mouth.

A series of drums began to beat throughout Ashge. People shouted in joy.

Nasomi called up the fearlessness in her, and approached. The wall shattered. “I fear you no more.”

“And I don’t fear you, dream witch. Come to your death.”

They charged at each other. Nasomi dropped the staff, retrieved the knife from her inner cloak pocket, lifted it in the air and aimed for a killing stab. She knifed into a wall, and while it shattered, it protected Reema. Reema punched her in the belly, slapped the knife away from her hand.

Reema gripped her hair, but let go as though she had touched fire. “What is this?” she said, shocked.

“I can undo you, Bride,” Nasomi said, letting a smile on her face. She took a step toward Reema, and Reema took a step backward. Reema waved her hand and a wall came in between them. Nasomi walked through it. Reema kept backing away and casting protections into the air. As Nasomi walked through them, it felt like wading through water.

She heard Djina scream behind. She turned to see the hyena coming at her.

“Yes, Gweuka!” Reema shouted. “It’s about time!”

Djina moved away from Gweuka’s way, but he turned toward her. Instinct made Nasomi run to the girl’s rescue. Djina stumbled backward. The hyena sank his teeth into her shoulder. Nasomi reached down and grabbed her staff. In her right hand…

She shifted into a telling.

She was a dancing mother of a groom, as men about him played drums and sang. The groom was smiling, happy about his upcoming wedding, and he rose to serve another round of drinks to the dozing family members…

Nasomi wrenched herself out of the telling. Gweuka shook Djina violently, threw her to the ground. Nasomi bound at the hyena, raising her staff. A strange sensation was flowing through her body, into her hands. It was pure; it was like water, and it was like fire. It was everything she was, her past, her future, what she could be, her true self. It was the breaking of everything that had limited her. It was energy, it was color, it was beauty, it was light, it was limitless, and she was transferring it through her staff.

When she hit the hyena, the beast froze. And exploded. Into bands of blinding light and color and a loud humming sound. The bands rippled like water waves, coloring everything, brightening everything. They rose up into the sky in thick columns.

When the brightness died down, and she could see well again, Nasomi fell to her knees beside Djina. Djina was coughing blood and thrashing. There wasn’t anything left of the hyena.

“Djina, no!” She took the girl’s head in her hand. “This can’t be right, Djina! The dream... The dream. You were with me. You should be with me.”

Djina tried to speak but she only coughed, her eyes fluttering. She became limp. Her head lolled to one side.

Hurt burned Nasomi’s belly. It was heavy in her chest and she couldn't cry it out enough. Her throat was a boulder, and her body trembled as she wailed. When she turned her head, she saw the Bride being carried away on Tambo’s back.

“You’re my Mfunda, Djina! Don’t die!” Nasomi pleaded. “I have places to go with you… Djina, no! Djina please! Not you, too!”

She picked up the staff and went into Djina’s mind. Djina’s consciousness was expanding. It encompassed everything around her, the sky above Ashge and the ground beneath it: the wet clouds dragging through the sky, the worms squirming in the soil; the birds in the air, the roots seeking water in the rocks deep in the ground. It went on and on, making Ashge small, its people as tiny as ants, growing above the clouds and below the deep rocks into a place that was molten iron.

The oceans were now like pools. There were other landforms, not only Ao and Tunkambe; other peoples. The world became a ball, floating in a sea of the power that drove Nasomi’s tellings. There were other worlds!

The sun was a ball of fire. There were stars. Uncountable, everywhere. Up, down, left, right, all around. The Mara. She was looking at the Mara! And they were watching over more worlds than her own. And then she was above them, watching everything shrink into a spiraling snail shell of worlds and stars and suns and magic. And more shells and more spiraling.

Nasomi whipped back into herself.

She wept.

People gathered about her. The drumming in the town had stopped.

“What are you doing?” she said. They were picking Djina up.

“It is done, Nha,” a man said. “Nhaye and Mzaye pleasure in her death. We take her to her place among the blessed departed.”

“Look!” someone shouted. “The crops!”

The tomato and pumpkins looked lively, the pumpkin leaves and sweet potato leaves a lush green. There was no sign of corruption or insect infestation, and some flowers were blooming even as Nasomi looked at them.

“What is going on?” several people asked.

“The god and goddess are among us today!” someone else declared. “Mzaye and Nhaye bless us today! Didn’t you hear their drumbeat? Didn’t you see their light? Now see how they turn rot into life. Our Wenga is blessed, our season is blessed. Let us celebrate!”

Cries went up, and the drums resumed. Djina was placed on a large cloth, carried away. Nasomi followed after them, saying nothing. She heard as the tale of the drumbeat of the gods spread. She learned that the blessed departed were people who died during the Wenga A'onze period. They were considered fortunate. They were placed in an open area near to where the weddings took place, and people threw flowers and sang praises their way. And after the days of the Wenga passed, a large funeral would be held for them, equally grandiose, where only good things would be said.

Nasomi touched Djina’s forehead when they placed her among other dead people.

“I led you to your death. I thought the dreams would always be right. Now I am not sure of anything anymore apart from this: I will avenge you.”

She took the staff in her right hand, searched for the Bride. Found her and Tambo tired and panting in a field of termite mounds outside of Ashge.

She ran after them.