of birds flew off. Too fast. Ripped cloth flapped all over him.
“The door, Sadogo, the door!”
Sadogo threw off the Leopard, slammed the door, and dropped the three bolts across it. A bang hit the door like a lightning bolt. Sadogo jumped. The creature EEEEEEEEEEE’d again, threatening to deafen every soul close.
“Shit,” I said.
The walls of the hut were stick leaves and dry shit. The creature would punch a hole right through it as soon as he saw that he could. It banged and banged and the old wood started to crack. He EEEEEEEEEEE’d again and again. Sadogo picked up the Leopard.
“The door,” he said.
I thought he was pointing to the front door, but he nodded at the back. The creature punched a hole through the front door and pushed his face against it. Face shaped like that of a man bred with a devil. His left eye really did smoke. Nose punched in like an ape’s and long, rotten teeth. He snarled and spat through the hole, then pulled away. I could hear his feet, his footsteps quicker and louder, running, right into the door. The hinges broke, but did not break off. His face pushed through the hole again. EEEEEEEEEEE. He ran off to charge again.
Sadogo grabbed each lock and ripped them off the back door. The mad monkey rammed into the wood and his whole head burst through. He tried to pull himself but was stuck. Now he looked up at us and yelled and screamed and snarled and I could hear his tail whip against the hut. We turned to the back door and all the locks Sadogo had ripped out appeared again.
“He will get through the door the third time,” I said.
“What kind of magic is this … what kind of magic?” Sadogo said.
I stood next to Sadogo and studied this door. There was magic, but my nose was no help in unraveling its making. I whispered an incantation I never remembered hearing before. Nothing. Nothing like the house back in Malakal. Something from the Sangoma’s tongue, not mine. I whispered it again so close my lips kissed the wood. A flame sparked at the top right corner and spread around the entire frame. When the flames vanished, so had the locks.
Sadogo went past me and pushed it open. A white light shot through. The mad monkey EEEEEEEEEEE’d. I wanted to stay and fight him but I had two asleep and one about to fall down in a blink.
“Tracker,” Sadogo said.
The light lit the whole room white. I picked up Fumeli. The Ogo took the Leopard and stepped through first, then I hobbled behind. A crash behind us caused me to turn just as the front door broke off. The mad monkey charged in screaming, but as his chipped fangs reached for the back door, it slammed itself shut, leaving us in darkness and quiet.
“What is this place?” Sadogo asked.
“The forest. We are in the for—”
I went back to the door behind us. What could it be but a mistake to do so, but I opened it anyway, just a little, and looked inside. A dusty room, with stone tiles, and from floor to wall stood books, scrolls, papers, and parchments. No broken door. No mad monkey. At the end of this new room, another door that Sadogo pushed open.
Sun. Children ran and stole, market women yelled and sold. Traders eyed a good deal, slavers squeezed red slave flesh, buildings squat and fat, buildings skinny and looming, and far off a great tower I knew.
“Are we in Mitu?” Sadogo said.
“No, my friend. Kongor.”
ELEVEN
Leave the dead to the dead. That is what I tell him.”
“Before or after we went in the Darklands?”
“Before, after, dead is dead. The gods tell me to wait. And look—you alive and unspoiled. Trust the gods.”
Sogolon looked at me with neither smile nor sneer. The only way she could care less would be to try.
“The gods had to tell you to wait?”
I woke up when the sun sailed to the middle of the sky and forced shadows underfoot. Flies buzzed about the room. I slept and woke three times before the Leopard and Fumeli woke once, and the Ogo could cast off the sluggishness of the Ogudu. The room, dim and plain, walls the brown-green colour of fresh chicken dung, with sacks packed on top of each other all the way to the ceiling. Tall statues leaning against each other, sharing secrets about me. The floor smelled of grain, dust, perfume bottles lost