“Yes. Two days I slap out this foolishness about running back to Zogbanu.”
“She is dead weight. Leave her in this city.”
“What a day when a man tell me what to do. Will you not speak of the child?”
“Who?”
“The reason we come to Kongor.”
“Oh. In these twenty and nine days gone, what news have you of the house?”
“We did not go.”
This “we” I left for another day. “I do not believe you,” I said.
“What a day when I care what a man believe.”
“What a day when these days come. But I am tired, and the Darklands took my fight. Did you go to the house or no?”
“I bring peace to a girl that monsters breed to make breakfast of her flesh. Then I wait for usefulness to return to you. The boy not more missing.”
“Then we should go.”
“Soon.”
I wanted to say that nobody seemed too earnest in completing our mission and finding this boy, nobody meaning her, but she went to the doorway and I noticed there was no door, only a curtain.
“Who owns this house? Is it an inn? A tavern?”
“I say again. A man with too much money, and too many favors he owes me. He meet us soon. Now he running around like a headless chicken, trying to build another room, or floor, or window, or cage.”
She was already beyond the curtain when she looked back.
“This day is already given. And Kongor is a different city at night. See to your cat and giant,” she said. Only then did my head remember that she was saying she was over three hundred years old. Nothing said old more than an old woman thinking she was even older.
The Ogo sat on the floor, trying on his iron gloves, punching his left palm so hard that little lightning sparked in his hands. It was all over his face, blankness. Then as he punched his hand, he worked up into a rage that made him snort through his teeth. Then he went blank again. Standing in front of him as he sat there was the first time our eyes met on the same line. Sun was running from noon, but inside his room dimmed to evening. Things were stored in this room as well. I smelled kola nuts, civet musk, lead, and two or three floors below, dried fish.
“Sadogo, you sit there like a soldier itching for battle.”
“I itch to kill,” he said, and struck his palm again.
“This might happen soon.”
“When do we go back to the Darklands?”
“When? Never, good Ogo. The Leopard you should have never followed.”
“We would have slept there still, if not for you.”
“Or be meat for the mad monkey.”
Sadogo roared lion like, and punched the floor. The room shook.
“I shall rip his tail from his shit-smeared ass, and watch him eat it.”
I touched his shoulder. He flinched for a blink, then rested.
“Of course. Of course. As you say, it will be done, Ogo. Will you still go with us? To the house. To find the boy, wherever it takes us?”
“Yes of course, why would I not?”
“The Darklands leave many changed.”
“I am changed. Do you see that? That on the wall.”
He pointed to a blade, long and thick, iron brown with rust. The grip wide for two hands, a thick straight blade right down to halfway, where it curved to a crescent like a bitten-out moon.
“Do you know it?” Sadogo said.
“Never seen the like.”
“Ngombe ngulu. First I grab the slave. The master bred red slaves. One ran away. The gods demanded a sacrifice. He struck the master. So I set him before the execution floor. Three bamboo stalks sticking out of the ground. I push him down, force him to sit up, lean him against the stalks, and tie both hands back. Two small stalks, I drive in right by the feet and bind the ankles. Two small stalks I drive in right by the knees, and tie the knees to them. He’s stiff, putting on bravery, but he’s not brave. I take a branch from the tree and strip it of leaves and pull it down so it bends tight like a bow. The branch is angry, it wishes to be straight again not bound, but bind it I do, bind it to grass rope, then I tie it around the head of the slave. My ngulu is sharp, so sharp that looking at it will make your eyes bleed. My blade catches sunlight and flashes like lightning. Now the slave starts to scream. Now he