“Woe—” erupts the unmistakable shrill of the high oracle, tearing the womb of the night.
• • •
Parting dewy bushes, crushed underbrushes, lots of panting and sweating. Three stars in linear alignment above, no moon in sight, tar sky. Clad in well-oiled rags are the thieving men of Idi escaping a village. Idi is not a place, but a sect. Sort of. But what matters now is motion. Their motion. Because they’re running. Fleeing. And we must keep up with them.
Hands forcefully flapping over heads, feet going cyclical like they’ll materialize into cartwheels, hearts in high jump and heads bobbing in panic, the Idi men don’t stop for anything, hacking the pace as they go. The people of the South have a self-evident saying that goes only the pursued run at night but the saying does not hold true tonight because no one is after these bastards. Yet. Other than their guilt.
It’ll be hours later before the high oracle learns what’s happened. Which is pretty late, if you’re going to retrieve something in time. But since the Idi men couldn’t know this, they ran the hell away. Their lives, as far as they knew, depended upon how fast their legs could carry them. Every thief would hate to be caught. Kind of defeats the purpose.
The tall man in front made sure the men didn’t relax in their hearts. They called him Mahmed or boss. He is thought to have a hard chin on a rather boyish face, a squeaky voice usually trolled by subordinates and halfwits somehow utilized to put the damn mercenaries together. He is a very indebted soul. That’s how he became an Idi.
Now on open land, they maintain an even speedier pace. Clanking on their backs are these sacs they brought with them. It has all their spoils in it. Spoils they’d rather drop dead for than actually drop. Said spoils are artifacts made from copper alloy, ivory, terracotta, wood, iron, and coral beads. All the good stuff.
The Idi relish in the impoverishment of holy places. Particularly places very far away from their own lands. Places thought to have strange and unpopular gods, customs and practices. If those places were far enough, went the logic of the Idi, then the repercussions would weaken before it extends to them. They couldn’t be harmed by what they didn’t know.
In action tonight are the Idi from the NORTHFAR region, the land of travellers. Seen in caravans and long lines in the desert, their people were believed to always be on the move. But the Idi, infamous infidels that they are, added irreverence to their nature and go about stealing the pride of lands they venture into. Unfearing the consequences, they plunged into the heart of the KALABARI River Region tonight, the land of great culture and industry.
At the other end of the heist are buyers in the form of Albinis or the lightly pigmented race over the ocean in the MEAST continents to the high east, waiting at ports to receive the loots intact. Since slavery was no longer what’s in vogue and marauding and kidnapping groups could not sit on their hands, they formed the Idi instead — looters of sacred objects.
Open land ends at the edge of the canal. Canoes at the ready, hidden in the mangroves are taken out. They slot their oily bodies into the old but swift piece of hollow trunk. Relieved, they start to paddle. No footsteps approach their direction. The keel of the canoe wades through brackish waters and off they go. The village behind them growing smaller in view.
But can what’s passed be wiped away into a distant, imperceptible memory? A folkloric footnote begs to differ. The linearity of the three stars does not mean nothing. It is said to be when the gods are most charged to even themselves out. Spirits too. And all such beings. The nick of a cosmic opportunity for mayhem. Pecking order reshuffling. If so, it’s possible the Idi might’ve unknowingly set off a domino effect.
• • •
Responding first to the high oracle’s cry is Alu; running to her like a sworn acolyte, lamp in hand. He thinks she’s had one of those bad visions. But that wail is unlike what he’s heard before. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she, the oracle, sworn to childlessness, had just lost her only child. Only a grieving mother wails with such ferocity. What, pray tell, would the powerful, all-seeing, all-hearing oracle grieve?
Screaming, she woke him from sleep with the very tip of her tongue as if his soul was waiting on her. He’s always felt called to serve her in some way that’s still unclear to him. Confusing as it may be, he’s always there whether he’s needed or not. Tonight he is. He springs out of bed, dashes through the village at superhuman speed and appears before the oracle. He towers over her while she kneels to weep.
Only tears and sniffles, she can’t say a word. She’s at the shrine of her god—their god—the great Vogg. The ever regal Vogg, acclaimed as the noblest of all the gods. But then every peoples say that of their most revered deity. Not the most handsome of gods, but he stands apart in his own way. An underdog god who’s grown to be a force of nature. A god you want to have in your corner, literally.
Inside, centered on the shrine’s table was supposed to be the approximated bust of Vogg’s head: a bronze fatheaded male with fat lips, big ringed ears, a fat flat nose, eyes dilated to blindness, a ghastly attempt at a smile around his blood-smeared mouth, and a crown of spikes insufficiently fastened onto the circumference of his head. Then some candles blowing sacred smoke and nameless plants with purported healing properties lying about. All missing now.
A bunch of bloodied figurines of minor deities and ritualistic stuff Alu can’t know about are absent as well. Her wand of authority too. Lots of textual and symbolic paraphernalia of Vogg’s. All of them gone. The scope of the theft informs the depth of her wailing. She merely doesn’t weep for herself and the sacredness of what’s been taken; she weeps for the land and what they all know it will not be any longer.
Elders and villagers wake up and make their way to the scene. Encircling the oracle, unable to do anything for her. Because there is nothing to do for her. The oracle straightens for a moment and points a long, withered finger in the direction of the forest as she weeps, indicating she wants her god retrieved. She switches to an assortment of curses, mounting them en masse on the thieves but suddenly ceases. As if gagged.
“We are alone,” she proclaims, teary-eyed to the point of unseeing. “We have no one to defend us or hope in anymore. We are no longer a people.”
Alu and the elders look sideways, heads shaking bitterly, arms crossed as shock chills them to the bone. They understand the gravity of their oracle’s pronouncement. No protocol exists for an act as this one. None at all. “Who has ever had their gods stolen, that we may go and inquire from them how to be a people again?” laments a robed poet in a too depressing voice.
A man of action, Alu can’t stand for blooming words. The poet will make a garden of grieve out of his beautiful words. Alu hates standing around like this. His fingers fidgeting, body twitching, he sees himself going over the forest after whoever was responsible for this. He starts a little prayer to be winged for this holy purpose, then halts it when he recalls their prayers cannot take flight any longer.
He gets practical instead; comes forward, centers himself, fist clenched, lips rapping revenge to the vermins who violated Vogg’s shrine. Typically he should end with swearing his unrelenting fealty. “What shall I swear by now?” he asks the people with emotion in his voice. “Tell me, my people.” Silence. Everyone’s gone mute. Just crickets crittering in the background.
Being the religious assassin that he is, this responsibility naturally falls on his able shoulders. He locks eyes with the oracle, nods and she manages to nod back, which he takes to be the approval of this all-important mission. He rushes back home. Throws on a drab robe and boots, tucking three poisoned blades in there, a sword-belt on his waist, and a fatter sword in a sheath flung across his back, two knives hid in his dreadlocks, and finished with a roughened gauntlet baring various ferocious animal tooth.
He gives his charms one last long look, regarding their present impotence in the heat of battle, before abandoning them to head out the door.
Daylight does not kiss his door before he is ready. Off he goes, snaking out of the village through the valley and around the forest, just before it is twilight.
• • •
In the fat, diagonally-shaped, disproportionately bordered country of the CRUDE OIL PROTECTORATE, Alu is sincerely uncertain of where to begin his search. Territorially speaking, bordering the country to the right is the KAMERUN CONQUERMENT and on the left are the KAMARA STATES of WAFRICA. Inland is the AJAOKUTA COLONY, the land of steelworks to the west, KALABARI River Region and land of great culture and industry to the south, NORTHFAR to the north, and OBALAND to the southwest, which was the land of arts.
The world is big enough and those vermins could be anywhere. Alu has a map in his head though. He’s come to some of these lands for professional purposes, leaving with the heads of their unruly priestesses and chieftains. He has something of a well-placed network of informers. However, it is utterly embarrassing and unheard-of to speak of why he is here this time around. But he has no choice, and speak he will.
Around the hill across the valley a few days later, a neighboring village. Young and aged going about their various businesses, but in a way that seems somewhat unusual. Can’t quite place a finger on the unusualness, and maybe it’s just his sleepless head seeing things. Sleep is an affront to him at this point, a sheer disregard of his people’s calamity. He focuses on finding the informer and does so, by the treehouse.
“Vermin, infidel, what does it matter?” Alu grunts back to the squat man chopping wood after he’s told him some of what happened last night. “Just let me know if you saw them pass by.”
“Didn’t,” says the man, sticking his axe in the stump of the tree. “I’ll not lie to you about something like that.” When the man tries to be more inquisitive, Alu cuts him off. It’s already taken days to get here, there isn’t more time to waste.
He walks into the village to go see things for himself, untrusting everyone. He’s always been suspicious of these unproductive people anyways, with their small barns, no-name gods and unhealthy animals. But now, the place seems to be bubbling. Almost as vibrant as Alu’s own community. Is it only because he’s going through the market?
Speaking of market days, aren’t these ones days away from theirs? When did his people begin sharing their designated market day with them? He goes through, observing the stalls. Crafts in their infancy getting worked on by enthusiastic amateurish craftsmen. Blacksmiths in forges smelting rare earth metals. Makeshift trolleys delivering ores from the mountains and forests. Strange chemical workings foreign to Alu’s people.
When did these backward people become so hardworking? Where did they acquire such craftsmanship overnight? How in the world did they do it? He keeps these questions to himself, stunned to stillness. Last he checked, they worshipped some lowly god. Curiously, he wants to see if it is all still the same. So he makes his way to their shrine. Tribes are culturally insulated from each other around here. Jealousy protective of their values and beliefs. While his people are the melting pot of the region and have the market of markets, proud tribes like these would never stoop to imitating them.
Everything’s intact over there with the rough-hewn figurine when he gets to their shrine. Leaving him more confused. He realizes there aren’t more answers to be gotten here. Time to depart. On his way out, thoughts engulf him. Since Vogg is the god of industriousness and Alu’s people have been bred in his image, why does it look like these other people are benefiting from their god’s benevolence?
He falters to ask the unconscionable in his mind. It feels abominable. Sounds unright. But a really tiny, irrepressible voice from within is heard. “Has Vogg actually shown his face to these people and no more to us? Have we wronged—” He abruptly severs that thought. Something must be wrong with his head. Only thing left to do now is make the many days journey into the next settlement and see how it goes. With luck he should find the looters’ trail.
• • •
Somewhere at the periphery of the AJAOKUTA COLONY. Canopied trees, verdant shrubs, brown huts, spatial population, majestic mountains enclosing the village of Tete. Resonant noises. Harmattan. A tang of wonder in the air. Children playing. Women making for the stream. Men going at projects. Another morning in heaven.
Outside my hut is a man from the Volta with his ceaseless speech voltage. He is speaking one of the so-called endangered languages. He stutters as he speaks so that it almost sounds like one of the evergreen languages even stones would swear’ll never go out of circulation for generations to come.
The locals that gather around him believe his talkathon is trying to inform that somewhere between the Nupes and Igalas a prince has been beheaded. Which is really none of their business. I bet he’s a con artist who travels with his own caravan of orphaned pickpockets and misfits.
I stir in my sleeplessness. Rub my eyes with the back of my hand and straighten my body. The bigmouth has given me an excuse to leave this bad sleep. Been having lots of those lately. Aches my head. I reach for a gourd of roots on the stool. Downing everything in one go. Gulping. Belching. Sighing. Stretching. Cursing. My daily morning routine.
Sworn to Vagna the goddess of fertility right from when my breasts were visible, I’ve been her priestess. Lately, the troubled Vagna visits me a bit too much. She’s had her stuff taken from her major shrine in our land, and I know she bloody wants them back. Hence my mission as a vagabond. Last night in an aural vision she is lying on a beach, eyes all colored like the ocean and being attended to by her servants. Just making a stupid face, not retelling me what she wants.
A moment later she’s cast aside by a nightmare from Agun, a troublesome god. He wants something too, but he’s brash. Along with a host of spirits and beings, all sporting baits to lure me to help them out. It’s all crazy, the traffic. Last I got anything this close was during warfare. From stuck or vengeful spirits trying to crossover or do whatever.
They think they know what I want? That they can bribe me to do their bidding? I don’t give a rat’s ass about whatever the hell they want. I’m not paying attention. I don’t care. I’m only with Vagna because she gave a daughter to my fruitless mother. I know I want out, but haven’t got the guts to say it.
So I rebel in small ways. I like to do my own bidding first. Delay the requests of gods and spirits. Stack them up and attend to them as I please. Yes, I suffer for it now and then. But it’s worth it. How many people can say they hesitate to obey the gods? Outside my window, Sydak stands majestically, hooting. He’s my owl. Or the owl Vagna loans me. But he’s mine now, and doesn’t snitch.
He hasn’t seen anything unusual throughout the night, as his vision shows me when we lock eyes. I gather my robe, step into my sandals and step out of the hut. Taking up a big pot beside the hut, I’m heading for the stream. The pristine stream flows lazily over smoothened stones. All the women but one leave the stream.
I randomly notice the embroidery on the last woman’s pot. Seems familiar. Then it weaves a hypnotic thread that pulls me in. The whole scene reemerges but this time the woman has a misplaced smile on her overly comely face. Voices overlap when she opens her mouth. “Priestess Oru, will you not do my bidding?”
Takes me a minute before I place the person. “But it’s what I’ve always done, my goddess,” I say, bowing. She has a penchant for causing a woman pain that’s unique to womanhood. I hope she doesn’t deploy an abdominal anguish to punish me. “I am sorry, Vagna.” Silence. Terrible silence.
Next, I find myself in my hut under unexplainable circumstances. Vagna does that, not sure how. Maybe I never left the hut to start with. All that’s ringing in my head now is to head westwards. I’m sure she put that resounding thought there. I’ll have to promptly do her bidding this time.
I free my goldilocks and allow my hair flow to my shoulders, where Sydak likes to stand on. Put on my pants and boots. Redraw Vagna’s marks on my forehead, hopefully gods and spirits alike will see it and accept I’m spoken for. Lift my satchel bag and throw a scythe across my back. Off I go, sighing deeply. Till we see again, Tete.
• • •
Clanging swords and a dance of convictions in a clearing. Alu beats back two strange factions of the followers of Kori. Back home, Kori was barely worshipped but obviously is a big deal in these parts. He can’t quite get the gist of the fight but hopes to keep them from murdering each other first.
The fighting intensifies and it doesn’t look like he can keep death at bay. He tries his best, threatening them with poisonous daggers but it’s not enough to sway them. They are far too armoured by their convictions and set miles away from the shoreline of reason.
He can understand that. So he strikes, knocks one down and the other out. It doesn’t move the rest, as they’re still at each other’s throats. “You are brothers for goodness sake,” shouts Alu. They pay him no mind. For a moment there, Alu envies their conviction. Before now he didn’t know conviction could be stolen.
He’s had enough time in his travels to frame his understanding of who the vermins are that dispossessed them of their god. Who else would it be but the infamous Idi who traffick in this business? It just didn’t cross his mind that they’d come as far as their lands to strike.
He crosses swords with one of the fiercer fighters, kicks him in the gut, points the tip of his sword at his throat so he’ll surrender. But the man protests, can’t wait to get back to the fight. Someone knocks Alu over. The infighting continues without him.
In the side of his eye Alu sees a young woman in what he believes is a combative attire sneaking into the scene, scythe in hand. When she’s much closer, she charges at the men. Yelling. Her first move dispels the men as they assess the lethality of her weapon of choice. She snarls.
Alu charges back into the fight, fighting on the woman’s side. “Who are you, where have you come from?” She doesn’t answer him. It is starting to look like they may turn the tides for good, fighting to neutralize both factions. With a few clever moves, they subdue the weary fighters.
Time to get both sides of the story. The land they’re in historically isn’t a worshipper of Kori. The real, long-standing followers of Kori dwell in nearby communities. Upon hearing of the profaning of their god, which they presume was this land attempting to give irreverent adulations by the rivers and at other high places to Kori, they rushed in to staunch the effect. Hence the skirmish.
Oru is of the opinion that the old faction welcomes and accepts the new. Alu wonders how they came to be two factions in the first place, then if they’ve experienced a theft too, which they respond to in the negative. One faction reports that what the other calls profaning began one morning when the ways and conviction of Kori instantly came upon them and they were spurred to react. It was unexplainable, and now, here they are.
It doesn’t make much sense to Alu but there’s the physical evidence before him. He resolves that both factions go their separate ways, independently doing their own thing as of yet. Effectively passing the burden of their next clash to whomever stumbles on them. However, Alu keeps in mind that figurine of Kori from a neighboring village, a Kori stronghold, reportedly went missing the same night as Vogg’s.
• • •
He is standing at the foot of a waterfall when I find him, the man who’s just fought beside me. He’s as mysterious as his numerous knives. I’d never trust someone like that. Pretty sure he has no wife or kids or anyone at all to bury him. The way he cleans his blade, you can tell it’s the only partner he’s ever known.
“You didn’t tell me who you are,” he says without turning. My footfalls on the pebbles give my presence away.
“Oru,” I confess. He stares at Sydak, then back at me.
When he asks what I’m doing in these parts, I shoot the question back to him and then we drop it altogether.
“Spotted anything unusual throughout your journey?”
Journey? Who told him about it?
He answers my thoughts. “Your boots look like they’ve seen places. So, Oru, have you seen anything unusual on your way here?”
I’ll only share as much as he does. “No, not really.” I can tell he doesn’t fully believe me. “Should I have? Something you want to tell me?”
He goes on to share a newly formed theory of his about what’s been happening in the lands across these parts. “Something’s wrong. I have the inkling the gods are being dragged into lands they have no business in. It is tilting the affairs of man in uncommon ways. The lands are shifting under our feet. Customs, beliefs and practices are leaning in that direction too. The gods are shifting these lands among themselves.”
Does he sound ridiculous? Totally. Do I believe him? Let’s just say he’s saying some of the most lively things I’ve heard in a great while. I like the imagery. Sounds like the gods are coming to ruin. Although his sober look seems he’s not very happy about the way things are looking. Must be a loyal son of his land, can’t blame him.
We decide to forge on with the journey — now our journey — guess I’m sold on his cause. Our cause essentially, since we’ve both been ripped by the Idi. Guess Vagna wanted me to join forces with him. Who knows how chaotic the collision of gods are in other places out there? Right, I’d rather not know. We’re moving.
Going through woodlands and a mysterious tropical terrain, we arrive at the partially swampy settlement known as the kingdom of Oriku. Passing by the stony house that is the palace, we have the misfortune of listening to a diatribe by their resident, middle-aged oracle. She’s going on and on about the stars and gods and a perfect timing. Whatever that means.
Alu’s initially intrigued. Then she sort of loses it, as they usually do, and starts ranting about some sleep-eating deity who steals the sleep of men to feed them to her children, leaving their victims sleepless and marked for exhaustion. Alu pauses for half a minute, as if to discern something. Then gets moving again. We don’t know if we’ll find clues to the Idi in Oriku, but we’ll try.
We walk around, eyes searching for whatever’s strange as we hope to stumble on something. I feel now’s a fine time to open up to him about my conflicting visions. They don’t make as much sense when I say them aloud as they usually do in the unreliable recesses of my mind. I knew I shouldn’t have spoken. Now I know I’ll be seen as some freak, unless I confess what I really am.
I casually blurt it out, “Look, I am a priestess.”
Sydak hoots, not sure what for.
“You?” Alu says in disbelief.
Wouldn’t mind him at all, for this life was cast upon me after all.
He extends his theory, absorbing my story into a lengthier narrative. “Something’s afoot indeed,” says he. “An air of mystery we can’t readily understand. Everyone in the know is trying very hard to make use of it. Since we mortals do not have the full picture, we can’t really know what’s possible.
“All we can do is try to keep ourselves out of the picture,” I add. “Play our small bit and off we go.”
I don’t hear the old guy disagreeing. He tends to have the air of a legacy man, a reservoir of tradition and norms, one reserving his soul for whatever the gods deem is of utmost good. So I’m surprised to hear or not hear him disagree with me on this one. It’s all good. We move on. Alu moves stealthily. He has a whisperer here who tells him a few things after we find him.
The Idi are going to be at the very edge of the southwest in someplace known as La Gosh, a port town where they’ll want to sell off the artifacts stolen from allover. That’s enough information to power our journey till we get there. That of course is if we aren’t met by any surprises. Even then, I like to believe we shall meet them prepared.
• • •
After we manage to get through an unforbidden jungle, we emerge at a savanna that places us at the outskirts of some settlement neither Alu nor my far less travelled self recognizes. My first impression of them is an eyesore: filthy and malnourished horses savagely chewing on dry grass. This doesn’t make me want to expect more. But we head towards the village square anyway.
It’s all abuzz with noise when we get there. Drummers hi-fiving drums. Music forming in the noise. People dancing. Against my protests, Alu makes us sit down to eat. It’s been days on the road living from the wild. We’re served a strange tangy red soup with a mould of ground cassava.
The whole place is upbeat and alive. I wonder what it’s all about.
“Fine place to catch one’s breath,” Alu says between mouthfuls.
“Maybe if they treated their horses better,” I trail off, eyes studying everyplace and everyone for clues.
“Shame they don’t,” he says, pausing to study the type of meat in his plate.
And then I catch something somewhere beyond the open square, in the background of things. Women and children hanging upsidedown with their foot cut off. Quickly, I corner someone to ask what’s really going on. I desperately want to understand. Do they know women and children are hanging there while they party over here?
Before the explainer gets into his explaining, I hear a too unusual folklore sung most inappropriately. I freeze and listen. It is a corrupted chant of Kori’s. Just then, the explainer continues. He tells us they’re celebrating their new fertility goddess, Kori. And the grotesque spectacle on the tree behind? He calls it a sacrifice to appease her.
Appease Kori?
I try to tell him they have it all mixed up. Kori has her issues, but she’s not like that. She doesn’t do blood, at least not that of humans. I tell him what they’re doing is despicable. I tell him they’re vile people who just enjoy shedding blood and exacting torture. I tell him Kori curses everyone of them. My eyes moisten.
“Somehow, your Kori’s influence has arrived here,” Alu affirms, holding my shoulder as Sydak hoots. “but the people still have their old allegiance to Vas, the god of war. It’s really all mixed up.”
I don’t want to waste another moment here.
• • •
Under the heavy blanket of harmattan, navigating our way in LA GOSH isn’t the easiest. We get through to one Lloyd town and try to find our way from there. Our goal is to locate the shipyard and wharves. Which isn’t very hard to do. Getting closure is the real anticipated challenge here. We’ll find a way around.
The wharves, when we get there, are much larger than I envisioned. Not sure how we’ll find the Idi here. Alu doesn’t flinch, and I take it to be a good sign. I’m sure he’s working on a plan or something. All I’ve got to do is wait for it. When it doesn’t come, I try to throw in conversation.
“All those altered lands, do you think they’ll ever go back to the way they were?”
He heaves. “The powers of those gods should wane away from proximity with those artifacts. But would things remain the same? Hard to say. I’m not so sure. Traditions can be sticky. The Idi passed through all those altered lands and the gods, through those artifacts, sought to plant themselves in those lands and people.”
“Now we know that explains the alterations,” I agree.
First things first, we comb the area closest to the shipyard. While at it we find out when the next ships are coming in, which is in a few days. So the Idi must be close by, we just need to find them. We’ve got to hurry. And so we do, fighting our way through the cold and strangeness of this land of cutthroats and profiteers.
The first two days go by without success. Alu doesn’t allow us waver. Now that we’re close, his determination cannot waver at all. I envy his resolve, because I really just want to hide away and sleep and let him be our stalwart of reckoning for the Idi. We sincerely are yet to talk about how we’re supposed to recognize the Idi.
When I bring that up Alu simply says we’ll know them by the outsized loot they’ll be protecting. I believe him. And that’s what guides our search. In our next attempt at finding the Idi, we have to pretend to be buyers of holy artifacts. But that plan soon falls flat, because people know it’s mostly the Albinis that buy the stuff.
One day, we get lucky. We follow a loose trail that goes from a boy at a stall in the market all the way to a decrepit wharf. He’s purchased too many things, likely for a group of men in hiding. The very bunch of people we’d be interested in. And so he leads us to the loot. Where the loot is, as Alu predicted, the Idi just are.
Quickly, we spend that night neutralizing the rest of the team after we’ve studied them from afar throughout the day and understood their chain of command. When that’s done, Alu pounces on their leader who identifies himself as Mahmed. Alu bloodies him and hands him a swollen right eye. He staggers weakly. Clearly the guy’s worn out from their travels. I was personally expecting more of a showdown from the audacious leader of the Idi than this anticlimactic letdown.
And when the vermin wouldn’t talk in a civilized manner, Alu lets his daggers tickle him for a bit. With a dagger at the half of his tongue threatening its permanent disuse, the man begins to talk. He speaks of having had vague visions from the notorious god, Toh. Visions to do as asked, executing his will without question.
But when Toh doesn’t share further details after the course has been set in motion, Mahmed resolves to do the practical thing and sell off these artifacts to the highest bidder. I don’t buy his story, but maybe Alu does. The Idi are criminals and thieves who’d say and do anything to save their necks.
Alu holds a poisoned dagger to Mahmed’s throat, telling him this is a fitting punishment for his grievous offense against the gods and man. But first, he slits different places in his body so that the poison circulates while he stalls. In no time Mahmed is begging for death as his color turns pale. Alu holds out the final strike, pontificating some more.
To take him out of his misery, I slice his head off his shoulders in one swift move with my scythe. Alu looks disappointed but I don’t care. We’re done here. Justice should be quick and apt; this is not the gallows. If he could, I’m sure he’d take him back home for a public execution. He’d like to make a show of it, warning future miscreants.
“So what now?” I ask Alu.
You’d have thought he’d have a ready answer, but he didn’t. The man’s not as predictable as I thought after all. After thinking it through he comes up with, “We should probably give them to the Albinis.”
Following the logic I add, “And let our people learn to determine their own fates for a change?”
He shrugs positively.
“Or,” he alternates, “we hold out here till the alignment of the three stars passes. If there’s any truth to it.”
Touched, I reply, “We can do that.”
Abruptly, he gathers and takes up all of the loot taken by the Idi and walks out in the direction of the beach.
“What are you doing?” I call out. “Where do you think you’re going?” There’s dread in my voice.
“I find I’m too impatient to wait for the Albinis’ ship to get here,” he says flatly, still walking out to the waters. He walks rather stiffly. I can tell he’s having a crisis of faith. “If the gods are as powerful as they say, let them save themselves and leave us to our business.” With that, his hands let go of the Idi loot. Plop, the sack is deposited into the ocean.
I gasp, horrified. The man has truly terrified me for good. It feels like I’ve witnessed a lifetime in a moment. Of all the alterations we’ve seen in our journey, this one is most marvelling. I bet the gods themselves didn’t see this misalignment coming.
• • •
On the pristine white walls of the museum hangs a 24 x 36-inch painting of a 19th-century African beach setting. Along that wall are rows of portraits and paintings from the same era.
A girl has been staring at them for an immeasurable amount of time, seemingly sucked into the vortex of history. She is oblivious to the happenings around her and within the museum.
When she later steps outside after walking through the lonely hallways, she finds it’s raucous out there. There’s yelling, calls for the police, cursing, sirens blaring, and people standing around.
The museum is about to make an unscheduled shutdown. Her cultural exchange day is going to be cut short. It’s just one of those things the diaspora has to put up with.
People start panicking. Security assures them they have everything under control. The girl draws nearer to learn what’s happened. They tell her the museum’s been robbed and a chase is underway.
Another high-profile heist. The thieves entered the African wing and made off with the busts of a couple of gods and other artifacts of cultural importance. This is not good.
The girl solemnly makes her way home using the sidewalks. The tar sky of the European city is scant. City lights blink against the three stars of Orion’s Belt overhead in the direction of the chase.