and all the deciding must come from you.’
‘In two years’ time,’ said the old man slowly, ‘we are going to celebrate the escape of Odu and Amarava from the lost land of the First People, and that will give us the opportunity to get rid not only of this loathsome female, but of her impish son Kahawa as well.’
‘I would never relish an open fight with that left-handed madman,’ said young Luchiza. ‘It is easier to fight an angry rhinoceros than engage Kahawa in battle. The man is a monster and to him fear is an unknown thing.’
‘But an ordinary drug can vanquish the fiercest beast, Oh Luchiza,’ said the old man Kalembi. ‘And during that festival there will be many an opportunity to slip a drug into whatever mother or son would care to eat or drink.’
‘But Marimba is an immortal!’ said Luchiza soberly. ‘You cannot kill an immortal, although you can seriously wound one.’
‘I just want to get Marimba into my hands for a few moments,’ said Kalembi. ‘And I want her drugged and helpless. Then I would not only make sure that she never again invented any new musical contraptions but also that she forever forgot who she was. I want to turn her into a zombie on that day, my sons. You forsaken fools seem to have forgotten that I am the wizard-lord of the Wakambi!’
‘You mean to say you intend tampering with that immortal’s brain?’ cried the young man. ‘But even you will never dare to go that far, Kalembi!’
‘Somewhere in the forest is a slowly dying god, and this god is willing to reward with immortality anyone who can deliver Marimba into his hands,’ said the wizard-lord. ‘I would like to be the one to do so.’
‘You mean Nangai, the Evil, the monster who nearly destroyed the Wakambi!’ cried Luchiza. ‘I would watch my step with that heavenly renegade if I were you, Oh Wizard-Lord.’
‘I am willing to take any risk to attain immortality, my boy,’ the old man replied.
Meanwhile at the Great Hut the ‘Three Fire Dance’ had reached a shattering climax as Marimba, now symbolising the human soul that cannot die, leapt high into the air with arms spread out appealingly to the gods on high, leapt into the air to fall back into a forest of hands raised by the circle of women below her. The women bore their beloved queen in triumph to her sleeping hut. The assembled men let out a thunderous cheer and raised their war weapons high in salute.
In the darkness, beyond the light of the flickering torches, an old man’s cold narrow eyes blazed with unspeakable hatred and bitter contempt, and a one-eyed man of great ugliness sneered, while a young man whispered: ‘In two years, you putrid slut – in just two years’ time!’
A dark cloud had formed in the peaceful skies of Marimba’s life – a dark cloud that was to explode into a ravening storm of incredible fury.
Lusu was scared, and he had a very good reason to be. When one has slandered an innocent man for many days with intent to destroy him one becomes scared when one learns that all one’s lies have been exposed and the victim’s name cleared of all the slime one hurled at it. But Lusu had reason to be more scared; his victim had challenged him to mortal combat in the presence of the people of the two villages. And now he stood in the middle of the village clearing, his cowardly eyes so misty with fear that the hundreds of people sitting around watching him seemed strangely unreal – like ghosts in a distant spirit land. The only thing that felt real to him was his drenched loinskin.
There was a thunderous cheer as Mutengu crawled out of his hut and made straight for Lusu, and everybody saw with great surprise that he was completely unarmed. The watching villagers were even more surprised when his voice rang out harshly: ‘I intend to make this a battle without weapons. It is my intention to give that lying dog a beating such as no-one has ever seen before. Drop that club, Lusu, and use your bare hands – I dare you!’
Lusu felt his shaky courage evaporating fast. He had depended on this club because he was quite skilled with it. He wept openly with fear and the villagers howled with laughter. Cries of ‘shame’ and ‘coward’ assailed his ears and his nerve collapsed altogether. He turned and tried to run, but one of his own advisors kicked him in the buttocks, cuffed him soundly and pushed him back into the clearing. Mutengu tore into him with the violence of a thunderstorm.
Violent clouds of dust were stirred up by the feet of the fighting men and for a long time the only sounds were those of blows well and truly landed. Then finally a loud scream was torn from the throat of the coward Lusu and he turned and ran like a madman. He bowled men over in his great hurry to escape the wrath of Mutengu. He leapt a high fence and thudded to the ground beyond like a hippopotamus. He got to his feet again and sped blindly into the forest with Mutengu and all the villagers, Marimba included, in hot pursuit. When he noticed the pursuit was gaining on him he urged his short fat legs to increase their effort.
Lusu ran on and on – like the wind through the forest. Loud sobbing gasps left his labouring lungs through a dry mouth. He ran on heedless of the thorns that tore his feet and heedless of the fact that his loinskin had fallen off and that his great shiny black buttocks were exposed to the glare of the sun.
Then the voice of Mutengu was heard above the excited shouts and shrieks of the villagers – a voice raised in fear and great urgency: ‘Do not go there, Lusu . . . watch out!’
The pursuing villagers fell back, but Lusu saw in this an opportunity to run all the faster and he ran straight into Mutengu’s apiary. Like a cloud of dark midnight vengeance, vast swarms of bees set on him. Lusu screamed horribly as the bees all but smothered him; he screamed as they stung him on every part of his swarthy sweating stark-naked body.
He ran screeching to the riverside and leapt blindly into the murky waters. As they closed over his head he suddenly felt incredible pain as the mighty jaws of a giant crocodile closed around his fat thighs.
He thought he saw a gleam of great pleasure in the eyes of the crocodile. That was the last he saw. But there was time for another thought: Had he recognised in those eyes, the eyes of his long-dead wife – mother of Nonikwe? Had she been reincarnated . . . ?
* * *
The silver moon was high in the midnight heavens and the great lake Nyanza was like a plain of shimmering silver in the land of Tura-ya-Moya; the waters of the great lake were so still that one could count the stars reflected from the surface. The night was oppressively hot and humid. In the scowling forests bordering the lake there lay a deep and inscrutable silence.
Very surprising indeed was the total absence of animals; no lions roared and no leopards coughed their opinions about. There was no place on earth like the dark forests that bordered the lake in those days. They were forests of abandon, of desolation, of Hell itself. They did not crawl with life, but with death – in its most hideous form.
It was because the lake Nyanza was not an ordinary lake in those days. It was the Heart of the very Earth and the gateway to lands strange and utterly terrible. These lands were once on the surface of the earth but had sunk to its core as a result of the evil that inhabited them. The gods wanted to bury this evil land forever to save the race of Man. The forests around this lake were the haunts of hideous things emerging periodically from the bowels of the earth: Life Eaters, Night Howlers, Fire Brides and Viper Maidens, who hunted each other the whole night long. Woe betide any venturesome human creature stupid enough to be lost in those forests!
In
