stood up now, the sword of his great-grandfather steady in his right fist.
“I cannot,” he said. “There is a man I must kill in Huan-zuo. I am aware that he serves Sangzara, but this does not concern me.”
“It does now,” said the middle mask.
The three men drew their blades in a single motion, but Shango was already leaping over the campfire, his steel sweeping wide before him. As his sandals hit the earth and his legs bent low, blood sprayed from three necks. Each man was slashed from ear to ear below the pointed chins of their masks. They clutched at their spewing necks, dropping weapons to lie among the dead leaves. Shango whipped his blade twice to clear it of gore, then slid it back into the scabbard. The twitching bodies of his assailants hit the ground a second later, and soon they grew still inside puddles of red.
Shango carefully removed each dead man’s mask. He set the blackened squirrel carcass aside and fed each mask to the campfire’s flame until all three were charred to embers. He was about to try and salvage some of the burned squirrel-meat when an unexpected voice startled him.
“Why do that? Why burn their masks?”
The voice spoke in his own language, flawlessly and without accent, not even a trace of the twelve regional dialects. It was almost too perfect, marking the speaker as an outsider who had mastered the formal tongue, probably from books. Shango turned and drew his blade, holding it at arm’s length. It pointed directly at the stranger standing at the edge of firelight.
His face was that of a young man, his odd eyes and dress unfamiliar. He could not be from Huan-gao or Huan-zuo. He was an outlander with a ludicrous robe of gaudy colors that flared to points at the shoulders. His dark hair was unbound and longer than most women of Shango’s people, windblown and disheveled in a blatant dereliction of style. Yet Shango was entranced by his eyes, which gleamed and swirled in every possible color.
Shango stood with his blade between them and felt compelled to answer the stranger’s question. The man seemed in no way dangerous or threatening. He carried no sword or any other visible weapon. Most of all he seemed entirely out of place in the Forest of Heavenly Streams.
“These men are the disciples of Sangzara, the cruel wizard who governs Huan-zuo,” Shango said. “They are murderers sworn to evil gods. If their masks aren’t burned, their souls return to Sangzara and serve him from beyond the grave.”
“You have slain many such men.” It was not a question. “Far more than these three.”
Shango lowered his sword. “They gave me little choice,” he said. “How do you know these things, Vagabond?”
The stranger laughed. “I suppose I must look rather bizarre to you,” he said. “I am a long way from home…” He lifted the multi-colored robe from him as if it were a light cloak, and cast it on the ground before the campfire. Now Shango saw that it was a thick-woven rug, not a cloak or robe at all. The stranger, dressed in a simple buckskin tunic, sat down on the rug and motioned for Shango to join him.
“My name is Magtone,” said the stranger. “Formerly of Doomed Karakutas…may she rest in peace….”
Shango had never heard either name. Yet custom and manners dictated his response. His head bowed slightly as he introduced himself, and then he sat cross-legged again before his fire. The carpet was soft beneath him. It had been a long time since he had felt anything so soft.
“How is it you speak the language of Huan?” Shango asked.
Magtone produced a flask of wine from somewhere on his person, popped the cork, and offered Shango the first drink. His smile alone convinced the swordsman that it was not poison but hospitality that he was offering. The flask was made of black glass and shaped by clever hands into something resembling a woman’s body. On Shango’s tongue the vintage was of extreme quality.
“It’s a long story,” Magtone said. “Language is never a barrier to me. Suffice to say I’ve been the victim of a few wizards myself. One in particular.” His eyes stared at the stars above the treetops, as if looking into the past.
“Did a wizard’s spell send you into exile here?” asked Shango. “Is that why you are so far from home?”
Magtone took back his flask and drank deep. He wiped his lip with the back of a lean hand and his magical eyes flared against the firelight.
“Not exactly,” Magtone said. “I’m looking for the great and ancient city known as Odaza, where gods walk among men. Do you know it?”
Shango nodded. “Only from legends. Do you seek a legend?” He took another drink from the bottle, which calmed his growling stomach. “Only madmen seek legends as if they were realities.”
“Ah, you may call me mad if you wish,” Magtone said. “But at least I have a goal. How many madmen can say that?”
Shango drank a last sip of wine and turned the bottle upside down to show his guest that it was all gone. “I don’t know,” he said. “You are the first madman I’ve ever met.”
Magtone laughed. “I’m a poet actually,” he said. “Or at least I was…”
Shango grinned and was about to ask for a poem. A sound from the darkness stopped him. He put a finger to his lips, and Magtone nodded at his request for silence. Something dark and heavy moved among the trees, sniffing at the air, coming toward the dead men in their pools of cooling blood.
A long arm, apish and purple with a black claw on every finger, reached from the shadows and grabbed a swordsman’s corpse by the hair. It pulled the body into the dark, where the sound of gnashing teeth and ripping flesh drowned out the crackle of the campfire.
“It’s only a forest demon,” Shango whispered. “The bodies will appease its bloodlust as well as any sacrifice. Stay near to the flame and we have nothing to fear.”
Shango and Magtone watched the arm slink back again, then again, as each corpse was devoured in turn by the skulking beast. Afterwards it slipped off into the moonlight and disappeared. Only pools of red mud and a few bones remained of the cadavers.
“This forest is quite a nasty place,” Magtone said. “Yet I hear there are two great settlements at either end of this path. I’ve been lost in the wilderness for so long that I crave civilization. I know your language as I know all languages, but I do not know your customs. I thought perhaps to travel in your company awhile.”
Shango shook his head. “You do not want to travel with me,” he said. “There will be only blood and death where I am going.”
“You told the masked ones you seek to kill a man.”
“Yes,” Shango said. “And I can accept no man’s help in this endeavor.”
“So you will not turn back, you will not accept aid, and you wish no company?”
“You begin to understand me,” Shango said. “Perhaps you truly are a poet.”
“And perhaps you truly are a killer,” Magtone said. “Is this the sum of your ambition?”
Shango turned away from his campfire guest. He did not want to lose his temper and break the bonds of hospitality. He spoke without looking at Magtone.
