night. Sogolon, standing there as if seeing lands we could not see, was without doubt steering this with magic. The painted girl looked at me, wrapping herself in leather-skin.
“Are you a beast, like him?” she asked, pointing at the Leopard.
“You mean this?” I said, pointing to my eye. “This is of the dog, not of the cat. And I am not an animal, I am a man.”
“What is man, and what is woman?” the girl said.
“Bingoyi yi kase nan,” I said.
“She said that to me three times in the night, even in sleep,” she said, pointing at Sogolon.
“A girl is a hunted animal,” I said.
“I am the glorious offering of—”
“Of course you are.”
Everyone was so quiet that I could hear water gurgle under the raft. The Ogo turned around. He said, “What is man and what is woman? Well that is a simple question with a simple answer, except for when—”
“Sadogo, not now,” I said.
“Your name? What do they call you?” I asked.
“The higher ones call me Venin. They call all chosen ones Venin. He is Venin and she is Venin. The great mothers and fathers chose me from before birth to be a sacrifice to the Zogbanu. I have been in prayer from birth till now and I am still in prayer.”
“Why are they this far north?”
“I am the chosen one to sacrifice to the horned gods. This is how it was with my mother and the mother of my mother.”
“Mother and mother of moth … Then how are you here? Someone remind me, why did we take this one?” I said.
“Maybe stop asking questions where you know the answer,” the Leopard said.
“Is that it? Where would I be without the wise Leopard? What is this answer that I already know?”
“They would have eaten down to girl and boy bones by now. They were waiting for us.”
“Your slaver told them we were coming,” I said to the Leopard.
“He’s not my slaver,” he said.
“You both fool. Why send we on a mission then stop we from doing it?” Sogolon asked.
“He changed his mind,” I said.
She frowned. I was not going to say, Sogolon, what you say here is true. The Leopard nodded.
“Nothing point to no betrayal from the slaver,” she said.
“Of course. The Zogbanu was just following shifting winds. Maybe it was someone on this raft. Or off it.”
The sun was right above us and the lake had gone deeper blue. Bunshi was in the water, I saw her low down in the blue; her skin, which looked black in the night, now looked indigo. She darted like a fish, up above the water, then down, the east far off and west far off, then back, right beside the raft. She was like water creatures I have seen in rivers. A fin right down the back of her head and neck, shoulders and breasts and belly like a woman’s, but from the hip down the long swishy tail of a great fish.
“What is she doing?” I said to Sogolon, who up till now hadn’t bothered to look at me. The view ahead was nothing but the line separating sea from sky, but she fixed her eyes on it.
“You have never seen a fish?”
“She is not a fish.”
“She is speaking to Chipfalambula. Asking her for one more traveling mercy to take us to the other side. We are not here by permission, after all.”
“Not where?”
“You fool,” she said, and looked down.
“This?” I said, and kicked up dirt.
Her standing there, looking like a leader, annoyed me. I walked past her to the front of the raft and sat down. Here the mound sloped down into the river. I could see the rest of the raft under the water. It was not a raft, it was a floating island controlled by wind or magic. Two fishes, maybe as tall as I am, swam in front.
What I saw next I was sure I did not see. The island below the sea opened a slit right at the front where I sat and swallowed the first fish. Half of the second stuck out, but the opening chomped it down. Below my right heel I saw Chipfalambula’s eyes looking up at me. I jumped. Her gills opened and closed. Farther down her enormous fins, each wider than a boat, paddled slow in the lake, the half below the water a morning blue, the half above the colour of sand and dust.
“Popele asks permission of the Chipfalambula the toll taker to take us to the other side.