Unlike the other tsotsis, this one’s eyes glimmered with a spark of curiosity – and something else. He looked at Athir for a long time before speaking. Beads of sweat popped out across Athir’s browline as he began to realize who this dangerous-looking tsotsi probably was. And Athir knew then that he was in even deeper trouble than he’d thought.
“What you be named, Fidi-man?” the tsotsi finally asked.
“I’m Athir Rin.”
“I be Jass Mofo,” the tsotsi said. “This be the Ashaki set. Baddest set in the Maim. Heard?”
“Heard,” Athir replied.
He didn’t say anything more. But his heart sank to his stomach as his surmise of the tsotsi’s identity was confirmed. Amid the scant amount of information he had acquired about the tsotsis was the fact that Jass Mofo was considered the most ruthless and dangerous tsotsi in the entire Maim.
“What you doin’ in Ukili?” Jass Mofo demanded. “What you doin’ tryin’ to be tsotsi?”
“Like I told the other guy, I’m new here,” Athir said. “I didn’t know the Ukili was part of your territory.”
Annoyance flickered in Mofo’s eyes. He wasn’t accustomed to any indication of ignorance about his domain. Even the Emperor knew where Jass Mofo ruled. What was wrong with this outlander?
Jass Mofo gestured at the plunder scattered casually throughout the smoky chamber – a treasure hoard greater than the wealth of more than a few members of the Matile nobility.
“See that?” Mofo asked.
Athir nodded.
“That be mine,” Mofo said. “All of it.”
He gestured again, this time indicating the tsotsis who surrounded both of them, all of them looking with great deference at their leader, and disdain at the scrawny outlander.
“See they? They mine,” he said.
Then he pointed to Athir.
“And you,” Mofo said. “You mine. Heard?”
Athir knew better than to attempt to argue the point.
“Heard,” he said.
He had nothing to add to that statement. He knew his life was hanging on the balance of the whims of this young lord of thieves. He tried not to wince as Jass Mofo studied him ... assessed him, as if he were a freshly stolen prize. It was a gaze Athir himself had often bestowed on his victims.
“No other set got a tsotsi like you, Fidi-man,” Mofo said at last. “And this game you run – the one with the bones – no other set got that, either. I do believe you be good for this set.”
“Heard,” Athir said without prompting. “I’d be honored to be part of your enterprise. You can count on me, Jass Mofo.”
Jass Mofo laughed.
“Not that easy to be in Ashaki set, Fidi-man. You got to step over. Heard?”
Athir gritted his teeth. He had a good idea what “stepping over” would mean.
“Heard,” he said, hoping his voice reflected resignation rather than the fear that was devouring him inside.
4
Athir was sore. His body was bruised. He was bleeding. But he was alive. And he was now a tsotsi of the Ashaki set.
Although he normally preferred to work alone, Athir had occasionally found himself pressed into affiliation with criminal gangs, just as, from time to time, he found it expedient to offer his services to the crew of a departing ship. Unlike ships’ crews, though, gangs required initiations. And wherever Athir had encountered gangs, their initiations were always the same: the prospective member was required to run through a brutal gauntlet, with the gang members striking blows with fist, feet and, sometimes, weapons.
The tsotsis’ “stepping over” had been a gauntlet like any other. The only difference Athir could discern was in the incredible quickness of the tsotsis. Athir himself was far from slow, and in previous gauntlets he had run, he had been able to minimize the injuries he suffered by dodging and rolling with the torrents of blows that had rained down on him.
But he had not escaped many of the blows the tsotsis sent his way. Their hands moved like dark blurs, darting toward him with the swiftness of a viper’s tongue. Only moments after he began to “step over,” Athir knew he would need all the skills he had gleaned from a lifetime in back alleys simply to survive this initiation into the tsotsi ranks.
When the ordeal ended, no one congratulated Athir. He believed he did detect a brief glint of approval in the eyes of Jass Mofo. Mofo had not participated in the gauntlet. Like all rulers, he left matters like that to his underlings.
A young tsotsi woman had led him to the room in which he would recover from the effects of his “stepping over.” Athir’s aches were not so debilitating that he could not appreciate the subtle sway of her slender hips as she walked in front of him, or the lithe play of muscles beneath her dark-brown, mostly bare, skin. However, he wasn’t yet aware of the connections and protocols of the tsotsi set; he didn’t know who among them might be willing to kill him if he so much as touched even one of his guide’s beaded braids.
Before she left him at the entrance of his room, the woman pressed a wad of khat into his hand.
“Chew this,” she advised. “It make you feel better.”
Then she departed without a backward glance.
Athir followed her counsel. The khat gave him a sharp jolt when he started chewing it; then it began to ease him out of his pain.
Khat wasn’t nearly as potent as other narcotics he had sampled, such as Dream Lotus or Firedust. But it was sufficient. Just as the Ashaki tsotsis were sufficient ... for now. He didn’t plan on remaining with them a moment longer than he had to ....
He was thinking of ways to escape when Jass Mofo came into the room.
When he saw Mofo, Athir started to rise. Mofo motioned him to stay where he was.
The tsotsi chief had shed most of his aristocratic trappings. He was clad only in black leather senafil studded with silver, along with several chains of silver and gold around his neck. And he still looked like a Jass.
“Fidi tsotsi,” he said, smiling as
