Who Fears Death (26 page)

“Ah ah,” Mwita said quietly, his eyes wide. “There are people in there, even at this late hour. You think they’re open to the public?”

The town was called Banza, a name that sounded vaguely familiar to me. And it was on Mwita’s map. We were off course, having traveled northwest instead of due west.

“We need to pay closer attention,” Mwita said, as we stood looking at his map.

“Easier said than done,” Luyu said. “The walking gets so monotonous you drift off. I can see how it happened.”

A few people looked at us with mild interest as they passed but that was all. I relaxed a little. Still, it was obvious that we weren’t from here. Where our garments were long and flowing pants and dresses and veils, these people wore tighter clothes and cloth tied tightly over their heads.

The women wore silver rings in their noses and long tight half-dresses that flared at the bottom called skirts. They also wore shirts with no sleeves, showing their arms and shoulders. Most of the women’s skirts, shirts, and headcloths were of clashing colors and prints. The men wore similarly close-fitting clashing pants and tight caftans. We searched for an hour and found ourselves at their central market. It was busy despite the fact that it was past ten p.m.

Banza was an Okeke town driven by art and culture. It wasn’t old like Jwahir. Banza’s wounds were fresh. As the years passed, Banza learned to use the bad to create the good. The town founders turned their pain into art, the making and selling of which became central to Banza’s culture.

“Does this town sleep?” Luyu had asked.

“Their minds are too active,” I said.

“I think everyone here is crazy,” Mwita said.

We asked around about Diti and Binta. Well, Fanasi and Luyu did the asking. Mwita and I stood behind them, trying to hide our
Ewu
faces.

“Very pretty and dressed like holy women?” a man asked Fanasi. “I’ve seen them. They’re around here somewhere.”

“Stupid girls,” a woman told Fanasi. Then she laughed. “They bought some of my palm wine. About ten men were following them.” Apparently Diti and Binta were having a good time. We bought some bread, spices, soap, and dried meat. I asked Luyu to buy a sack of salt for me.

“What for?” she asked. “We have plenty.”

“The camels, if they’re still there,” I said.

Luyu rolled her eyes. “Not likely.”

“I know,” I said. I also had Luyu buy two bunches of bitter leaf. Camels like bitter and salty things. Mwita had Fanasi buy me a blue rapa. And Fanasi bought Diti a pick that was made from the bone of some sort of creature. Luyu bought something that sent shivers through my spine. I walked up just as she finished haggling with an old woman selling the tiny silver thing. The woman had a basket full of them.

“I’ll sell it to you for that price only because I like you,” the woman said.

“Thank you,” Luyu replied with a grin.

“You’re not from here, are you?” the woman asked.

“No,” Luyu said. “We’re from farther east. Jwahir.”

The woman nodded. “Beautiful place, I hear. But you all wear so much cloth.”

Luyu laughed.

“You know how to work a portable?” the woman asked.

Luyu shook her head. “Please, show me.”

I watched as the women explained how to play the portable’s audio file of the Great Book and make it tell the weather. But when she pressed a button on the bottom and the eye of a camera popped up, I had to ask, “What are you buying this for, Luyu?”

“In a minute,” Luyu said, patting my cheek.

The old women shot me a distrustful look.

“Have you seen two girls dressed like us?” Luyu quickly asked the old woman.

The woman’s eyes stayed on me a moment longer. “Is that one traveling with you?” she asked, motioning to me.

“Yes,” Luyu said. She smiled at me. “This is my closest friend.”

The woman’s face darkened. “I’ll pray to Ani for you, then. Both of you. I don’t know about her, but you seem like a good clean girl.”

“Please,” Luyu pressed. “Where did you see these two girls?”

“I should have known. Those girls attracted men like magnets.” She glared at me and looked as if she wanted to spit. I held her eyes. “Try the White Cloud Tavern.”

 

“An old woman like that should know better,” I mumbled to Luyu as we followed Fanasi and Mwita past the remaining market booths to the small building whose insides blazed with light.

“Forget her,” Luyu said. She brought out her portable. “Here look.” She pressed a button on the side and it beeped sweetly. She flipped it over and a tiny door on its bottom slid up to reveal a screen. “Map,” Luyu said. The portable beeped again. “See look.” She held it over the palm of her hand where it shined the white picture of a map. It rotated to maintain the proper direction each time she moved. If this map was accurate, and I believed it was, then it was far more detailed than the one Mwita had.

“See the orange line?” Luyu asked “The woman programmed it so that the map shows the way from Jwahir to the West if we’d gone straight west. We’re about three miles off. And see here? You press this button and it starts tracking us. It’ll beep when we start moving too far off course.”

The line hit the Kingdom of the Seven Rivers, in particular a town on the fifth river called Durfa. I frowned. My mother’s village was not far from there. Had she been aware of traveling so directly east? “Who do you think made the map?” I asked.

Luyu shrugged. “The lady didn’t know.”

“Well, I hope it wasn’t a Nuru,” I said. “Can you imagine if they had the exact location of so many Okeke towns?”

“They’ll never leave their precious rivers,” Luyu said. “Even to enslave, rape, and kill more Okekes.”

I’m not so sure that’s true,
I thought.

We spotted them as soon as we entered the tavern. Binta sat on a young man’s lap, a red glass of palm wine in hand, the top of her dress half open. The man was whispering in her ear, one hand pinching her exposed left nipple. Binta moved his hand away, then changed her mind and moved it back. Another man with a guitar passionately serenaded her. Yes, shy Binta. Diti sat in the middle of seven men who hung on her every word. She too had a glass of palm wine.

“We’ve come far and we’ll go farther,” Diti was saying, her words slurred. “We won’t let our people keep dying. We’re going to stop it. We’re skilled in combat.”

“You and what army?” a man said. They all laughed. “Do you two beautiful creatures even have a leader?”

Diti grinned, swaying slightly. “An ugly
Ewu
woman.” Then she laughed hard.

“So two girls follow a prostitute west to save the Okeke people,” one of the men laughed. “Ah ah, these Jwahir girls are even better than that big-breasted storyteller!”

“Diti!” Fanasi shouted, striding in.

She tried to stand and instead stumbled into the arms of one of the men. He helped her stand up, holding her out to Fanasi. “Is this one yours, then?” the man asked.

Fanasi took Diti’s arm. “What are you doing?!”

“Having a good time!” she shouted, snatching her arm away.

“We were going to come back in the morning,” Binta said, quickly pulling the top of her dress closed. I was so angry that I turned and walked out the door.

“Don’t go far,” Mwita said after me. He knew not to follow.

I stepped into the night, the breeze pushing my veil back right in front of a group of young men. They were smoking something that smelled like sweet fire. Brown cactus sap cigars. In Jwahir, these were deeply frowned upon. They loosen your morals, quicken your feet, and give you awful breath. I caught my veil and pulled it back up.

“Giant
Ewu
woman,” the one closest to me said. He was the tallest of the four, standing almost at my height. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“I’ve never been here before,” I replied.

“Why are you hiding your face?” another asked, adjusting himself. His pants looked way too tight for his fat legs. All four of them stepped up to me, curious. The tall one who’d called me a giant leaned against the building beside me, putting himself between me and the tavern door.

“This is what I prefer to wear,” I said.

“I thought
Ewu
women preferred to wear nothing at all.” The one who said this wore his hair in long black braids. “That you and the sun are siblings.”

“Come and give me entertainment,” the tall one said, taking my arm. “You’re the tallest woman I’ve ever seen.”

I blinked, frowning. “What?”

“I’ll pay you, of course,” he said. “You don’t need to ask. We know your trade.”

“You can entertain me after him.” This one looked no older than sixteen.

“I was here before both of you,” the fat one said. “She entertains me first.” He looked at me. “And I have more money.”

“I’ll tell your wife if you don’t let me go first,” the young one said.

“Tell her then,” the fat one angrily barked.

In Jwahir,
Ewu
people were outcast. In Banza,
Ewu
women were prostitutes. It was no good wherever I went. “I’m a holy woman,” I asserted, holding my voice steady. “I entertain no one. I am and will remain untouched.”

“We respect that, lady,” the tall one said. “It doesn’t have to be intercourse. You can use your mouth and let us touch your breasts. We’ll pay you well for . . .”

“Shut up,” I snapped. “I’m not from here. I’m not a prostitute. Leave me be.”

A series of unspoken words passed between them. They made eye contact with each other and their lips curled into mischievous smiles. Their hands left their pockets where their money was.
Oh Ani, protect me,
I thought.

They sprang at the same time. I fought, kicking one of them in the face, grabbing the testicles of another and squeezing as hard as I could. I just needed to make it to the door so the others could see me.

The tall one grabbed me. There was too much noise inside the tavern and the breath was knocked out of me before I could shout. I punched, scratched, and kicked. I was rewarded with grunts and curses as I made contact. But there were four of them. The one with the braids grabbed my thick braid and I fell backward. Then they started dragging me away from the door. Yes, even the young one. I anxiously looked around, holding my braid. There were other people nearby.

“Eh!” I shouted at a women just standing there staring. “Help! Help me,
o!
”

But she didn’t. There were several people doing the same, just standing there watching. In this lovely town of art and culture, people did nothing when an
Ewu
women was dragged into a dark alley and raped.

This is what happened to my mother,
I thought.
And Binta. And countless other Okeke women. Women. The walking dead.
I began to get very very angry.

I was bricoleur, one who used what she had to do what she had to do, and so I did. I mentally opened my sorcerer Bushcraft bag and considered the Mystic Points. The Uwa point, the physical world. There was a slight breeze.

They held my face to the dirt, tore at my garments, and freed their penises. I concentrated. The wind increased. “There are consequences to shifting the weather,” Aro had taught. “Even in small places.” But I didn’t care about that right now. When I’m truly angry, when I’m filled with violence, all things are easy and simple.

The men noticed the wind and let go of me. The boy yelled, the tall one stared, the fat one tried to dig a hole to crawl into, and the one with the braids pulled at his hair in terror. The wind pressed them to the ground. The most it did to me was blow my thick braid and loose garments about. I stood up, looking down at them. I gathered the wind, gray and black in my hands, and pressed it together, elongating it into a funnel. And I would thrust it into each man, as each had wanted to thrust his penis into me.

“Onyesonwu! Don’t!” Mwita’s voice was resonant, as if he’d thrown it at me.

I looked up. “See me!” I shouted. “See what they wanted to do to me!”

The wind kept Mwita back. “Remember,” he shouted. “This is not what we are. No violence! It’s what sets us apart!”

I began to tremble as my fury retreated and clarity set in. Without the blindness of rage, I clearly understood that I wanted to kill these men. They cowered on the ground. Terrified of me. I looked at the people who’d gathered. I looked at Binta, Luyu, Diti, and Fanasi all standing there. I refused to look at Mwita. I pointed the black roaring spear of wind at the youngest one.

“Onyesonwu,” Mwita begged. “Trust me. Just
trust
me. Please!”

I pressed my lips together. Thinking of the first time I saw Mwita. When he’d told me to jump from the tree after I’d unknowingly turned into a bird. I hadn’t been able to see his face, I didn’t know who he was, but even then I trusted him. I threw the spear and it blasted a large hole beside the young one. Then the idea came to me. I changed myself. In the Great Book there is a most terrifying creature. It only speaks riddles and, in the stories, though it never kills, people fear it more than death.

I changed into a sphinx. My body was that of a giant robust desert cat but my head remained mine. It was the first time I used a shape I knew, altered its size, and kept a part of myself the same. The men looked up at me and screamed. They groveled lower to the ground. The onlookers also screamed, running in all directions.

“Next time you want to attack an
Ewu
woman, think of my name: Onyesonwu,” I roared, whipping my thick tail at them. “And fear for your life.”

“Onyesonwu?” one of the men asked, his eyes wide. “Eeee! The sorceress of Jwahir who can raise the dead? We’re sorry! We’re sorry!” He pressed his face to the dirt. The young one started crying. The other men gibbered apology.

“We didn’t know.”

“We smoked too much.”

“Please!”

I frowned, changing back. “How do you know of me?”