This man rode one horse into the dirt, another one into the sand, one into bush, and one right into the Mweru. The night was open in all the lands, and outside the lands was the infantry. Who knows how many were lazy from food, or asleep? He came upon them, rode through them with a torch in his hand, kicking over pots and trampling one soldier, and they hurled spears and missed, and searched for arrows but were too tired or too drunk and shot at each other, and when a few roused themselves enough to grab spear, and bow, and clubs, they saw where he was headed, and stopped. For if death seems so sweet to him, who are we to stop him, one of them must have said.
And what did this man wear other than rage and sadness? He rode the horse through the harsh soil of the Mweru, lighter than sand and thicker than mud, past springs that would boil off man flesh and stank of sulfur. Past fields where nothing grew and underfoot old bones of men cracked and broke. One of those lands where the sun never rose. He came upon a lake of black, brown, and gray that ate away at the shore and he rode around it, for who knew what creature lived in there? He wanted to shout at the lake that he would take any monster that came out for delaying him, but rode around.
The ten nameless tunnels of the Mweru. Like ten overturned urns of the gods. His horse stood outside one, as high as four hundred paces upon four hundred, or higher, taller than a battlefield, taller than a lake was wide, so high that the roof vanished in shadow and fog. And wide as a field as well. At the mouth of the tunnels, his horse was an ant and he was less. The farthest tunnel had the widest mouth, beside it a tunnel that was the tallest, but the entrance smaller than a man standing on another’s shoulder. Beside it, a tunnel just as tall, the entrance sunken in to the earth so he could ride the horse straight in. Beside that, a tunnel not much higher than the horse. And so on. But each tunnel rose much higher than their openings, and more than toppled urns, they looked like giant worms asleep or felled. On the walls at the base of the tunnels, copper or rust, fashioned by divine blacksmiths, or someone else. Or iron, or brass, burned together in some craft only the gods know. On the outside walls of the tunnels, sheets of metal, in rust and in shine, from ground to sky.
A screech. Birds with tails, and thick feet, and thick-skin wings. Moss and brown grass overrun the ceiling of every tunnel, joining them together. Bad growth hiding what they were. Everything becoming brown. He and horse rode down the middle tunnel to the light at the end, which was not a light, for the Mweru had no light, only things that glow.
And at the end of the tunnel, wide flatlands pockmarked with perfect holes, with pools of water that smelled like sulfur, and at the foot of the wilderness, a palace that looked like a big fish. Up close it looked like a grounded ship made of nothing but sails, fifty and a hundred, even more. Sail upon sails, white and dirty, brown and red, looking like blood spatter. Two stairways, two loose tongues rolled out of two doors. No sentries, no guards, no sign of magic or science.
At the doorway, he threw away the torch and pulled both axes. In the hallway, tall as five men standing on shoulders, but wide as one man with his arms spread, orbs floated free, blue, yellow, and green and burning light like fireflies. Two men, blue like the Dolingon, came at him from both sides, saying, How can we help you, friend? At the same time, both drawing their swords slow. He leapt and swung both hands down on the left guard, hacking him again and again in the face. Then he chopped him once in the neck. The right guard charged, and he jumped out of the way of his first strike, spun on the ground, and hacked him in the knee. The guard dropped on that same knee and howled and the man chopped him in the temple, the neck, the left eye, then kicked him over. He kept walking, then running. More men came, and he jumped, leapt, dropped, chopped, hacked, cutting them all down. He dodged out of one sword and elbowed the swordsman in the face, grabbed his neck, and slammed him into the wall twice. He kept running. A guard in no armour but with a sword screamed and ran straight for him. He blocked the sword with one ax, dropped to his knees, and chopped the guard’s shin. The guard dropped the sword, which he grabbed and stabbed him with.
An arrow shot past his head. He grabbed the near-headless guard and swung him around to catch the second arrow. As he ran, he felt each arrow pierce the guard until he was close enough to throw the first ax, which hit the bowman right between the nose and the forehead. He took the bowman’s sword and belt. He ran until he came out of the corridor into a great hall, with nothing but orbs of light. A giant came at him and he thought of an Ogo, who was his great friend, who was a man, not a giant, a man of always present sorrow, and he howled in rage, and ran and jumped on the giant’s back and hacked and hacked at his head and neck until there was no head and neck, and the giant fell.
“King sister!”
No sound in the room but his echo, bouncing mad on the walls and ceiling, then disappearing.
“Will you kill everyone?” she said.
“I will kill the world,” he said.
“The giant was a dancer and nurse of children. He had never done any in this world a bad thing.”
“He was in this world. That is enough. Where is he?”
“Where is who?”
He grabbed a spear and threw it where he thought the voice was coming from. It struck wood. The orbs shone brighter. She sat on a black throne ringed with cowries, and several hands above it lodged the spear. Two guards, women, stood by her side with swords, two beside them crouched with spears. Two elephant tusks at her feet and carved columns tall as trees behind her. Her headdress, thick cloth wrapped around and around to look like a flaming flower. Flowing robes from chest to feet, gold breastplate on her chest, as if she was one of the warrior queens.
“How hard it is, exile to this place of no life,” he said.
She stared at him, then laughed, which made him furious. He was not speaking wit.
“I remember you being so red, even in the dark. Red ochre, like a river woman,” she said.
“Where is your son?”
“And how skillful you were with an ax. And a Leopard who traveled with you.”
“Where is your boy?”
“Bunshi, she was the one who said, They will find your boy, especially the one called Tracker. It has been said he has a nose.”
“It’s been said you have a cunt. Where is your fucking boy?”
“What is my boy to you?”
“I have business with your son.”
“My son has no business with men I don’t know.”
He smelled him coming in the dark, trying to move in the shadow, to move quiet. Coming from the right. The man did not even turn, just threw his ax and it hit the guard in the dark. He yelped and fell.
“Call them. Send for every guard. I will build a mountain of corpses right here.”
“What do you want with my boy?”
“Call them. Call your guards, call your assassins, call your great men, call your best women, call your beasts. Watch me build a lake of blood right before your throne.”
“What do you wish with my boy?”
“I will have justice.”
“You will have revenge.”
“I will have whatever I choose to name it.”
He stepped towards the throne and two women guards swung down at him from ropes. The first, carrying a sword, missed him, but the second, with a club, knocked him over. He fell and slid on the smooth ground. He ran to the dead guard’s sword and grabbed it right before the second guard swung her club at him again. She swung hard but could not stop his swing quick enough. He kicked her in the back and she fell. He charged but she swung the club up and struck him in the chest. He fell on his back and she jumped up. He tried to swing his sword but she stomped on his hand. He kicked her in the koo, and she fell hard on her knees into his chest, which knocked his air out. The guard, her knuckles hard leather, punched him in the face, and punched him and punched him again and knocked him out.