Abengoni
First Calling
A Novel By
Charles R. Saunders
MVmedia
Fayetteville, Georgia
Copyright © 2014
MVmedia, LLC
Published 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Abengoni: First Calling
First Edition
Dedicated to: Milton, Vickie, Brandon and Alana Davis—My Sword-and-Soul Family
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
1
2
3
CHAPTER TWO
1
2
3
CHAPTER THREE
1
2
3
4
5
CHAPTER FOUR
1
2
3
CHAPTER FIVE
1
2
3
CHAPTER SIX
1
2
3
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER TEN
1
2
3
3
4
PART TWO | RETRIBUTION TIME
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER TWELVE
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1
2
3
4
5
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1
2
3
4
5
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1
2
3
4
5
6
CHAPTER TWENTY
1
2
3
4
PART THREE | CITY OF BELIEVERS
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1
2
3
4
5
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1
2
4
4
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
1
2
3
4
5
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
1
2
3
4
5
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
1
2
3
4
5
6
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
1
2
3
4
5
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE@
1
2
3
4
5
CHAPTER THIRTY
1
2
3
4
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
1
2
3
4
5
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX | CHARACTERS
RACES AND ETHNICITIES
DEITIES AND OTHER SUPERNATURALS | Ateti, a Jagasti, known to the Matile as the Goddess of lakes and rivers. | Akpema, a Jagasti, known to the Matile as the God of the sun. | Alamak, a Jagasti, known to the Matile as the Goddess of the stars.
Halasha, a Jagasti, known to the Matile as the God of iron, the blacksmith’s craft, and war. | Legaba, a Jagasti, known to the Matile as the God of the Underworld.
Nama-kwah, a Jagasti, known to the Matile as the Goddess of the Sea.
Adwe, a world-spanning serpent that imprisoned the ancient ancestors of the people of Abengoni.
PLACES | Abengoni, a vast, tropical continent separated from most of the rest of the known world by huge expanses of ocean, including the Sea of Storms. | Matile Mala Empire, in times past, the mightiest polity ever known on Abengoni. Now reduced through war and catastrophe to a remnant clinging to its last stronghold on the shores of the Sea of Storms. | Khambawe, the Jewel City, capital of the Matile Mala Empire.
Uloa Islands, also called The Shattered Isles, an archipelago located to the northwest of the continent of Abengoni.
GLOSSARY
This story is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, persons and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
ISBN Number: 978-0-9960167-0-4
Cover art by Julie Dillon
Cover Design by Uraeus
Layout/Design by Uraeus
Edited by
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition
ANOTHER CALLING
Generally speaking, there are two major types of fantasy fiction: heroic and epic. Heroic fantasy – also known as “sword and sorcery” – focuses on the exploits of a single, larger-than-life character. The literary archetype for heroic fantasy is Conan the Barbarian, created back in the 1930s by the late Robert E. Howard. Epic – also referred to as “high” (but not on drugs) fantasy – paints on a broader canvas, with numerous characters interacting in multiple storylines. J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is the ur-text of modern epic fantasy, and George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones saga is its present-day exemplar.
When I began writing my stories in the early 1970s about Imaro, a black warrior whose adventures take place in an alternate-world Africa I call Nyumbani, I was enthusiastically following in the footsteps of Howard. His fiction captivated me when I was a young man, and I consciously wrote the Imaro tales in the tradition he established. Lord of the Rings was another influence, but it took a while for me to develop a set of storylines that would fit into a broader fictional scope. Indeed, more than 20 years would pass between the creation of the “Howardian” Imaro and the conception of a subsequent, “Tolkeinian” series.
At that time, another alternate vision of Africa sprang from the depths of my imagination. The name for this new other-Africa was Abengoni. And instead of the travails and triumphs of one central character, as in Imaro, the Abengoni saga would involve a broad spectrum of contact between two cultures – one black, one white. First Calling is the initial volume of that saga.
It’s not just the content of these two creations that is different, however. Imaro was born not solely from my enjoyment of heroic-fantasy fiction, but also from dissatisfaction. My love of the genre was tempered by discomfort with the racist depictions of black people and Africa that were found far too often in its stories. I wanted to promote positive portrayals of blacks, and present mythic and folkloric visions of Africa that would counter the “jungle stories” stereotypes. I wanted to show that African mythology, culture and history were as valid as the Celtic and other European traditions on which much of modern fantasy is based. To the extent that whites were depicted at all in Imaro’s milieu of Nyumbani, they were foes, not friends.
For Abengoni, a different creative drumbeat thrummed in my mind. What if there were another Earth in which people from parallel versions of Europe and Africa encountered each other on an equal basis, rather than fictionally reprising the racism and colonialism that have for centuries wracked the so-called “Dark Continent” of the world we know? What if European and African folkloric traditions could be integrated within the context of an epic fantasy saga, rather than remain at racial loggerheads?
The Abengoni series is my answer to those questions. It was conceived and written in a spirit of amity rather than anger. Yes, the people of different races within the pages of First Calling are aware of their surface differences, such as skin tone and nose width. They are not color-blind. But they do not attach the suite of negative stereotypes to those differences that have led to the bigotry, discrimination, segregation and apartheid that have plagued our world for far too long. The distorting lens of racism does not exist in Abengoni.
Wow, what a concept ...
As I mentioned earlier, Howard and Tolkein were my primary literary influences. But there have been non-literary influences in my work that have been just as strong.
When I was writing Imaro, I often felt as though I were channeling the spirit of Malcolm X – the spirit of rebellion.
When I was writing Abengoni, I felt as though I were channeling the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – the spirit of reconciliation.
Both spirits are vital components of my creativity today. My spirit of rebellion has been on display in my work for 40 years, in the Imaro stories and the tales of Dossouye, my black Amazon warrior.
