I learned a great deal about writing as this project progressed. And I applied those lessons to the Imaro stories, and, later, novels. But the Katisa novel waned as Imaro waxed, and I never attempted to get it published.
Even so, I realized that Katisa’s story shouldn’t remain on the shelf. It’s essential to the context of Imaro’s life. Accordingly, I incorporated it – in much-shortened form – into the third Imaro novel, The Trail of Bohu. Later, I rewrote the beginning of the novel as a short story for the 1983 program book of Maplecon, the convention of the Ottawa Science Fiction Society. Because of space considerations, only the first half of the story saw print. The second half went unpublished in the wake of my departure from Ottawa. So, this is the first time the entire Katisa story has seen print.
For this collection, I’ve done a substantial amount of editing and rewriting on the text, to make it consistent with the way the Imaro saga has developed over the decades since it was first told. What happens here, in a clan of a tribe of nomadic warrior-herdsmen, precipitates the events that ultimately shake the continent of Nyumbani to its core.
Consider this the true prequel to Imaro’s epic narrative...
IN THE BRILLIANT SUNLIGHT that poured through the openings of the manyatta, a slender young woman studied her reflection in a mirror of polished iron. Admirable indeed was the image that looked back at her, for she was attired in a magnificent muvazi – the marriage robe of a woman of the Ilyassai.
Draped loosely over the lithe contours of her body, the muvazi was made from laboriously tanned antelope-skins. Leaving one of the young woman’s shoulders bare, the robe glistened with a sheen similar to that of the satins woven in the rich kingdoms that lay far to the east. Row upon row of copper coils adorned her arms, neck and ankles, while hoops of the same metal pierced in spiral clusters through the upper part of her ears.
Of further ornamentation, there was no need. Even without her splendid ceremonial garb, the Ilyassai woman’s appearance would have been striking.
She stood a full ten inches over five feet in height, and her frame, though sapling-slim, was lithe, graceful and strong. Her face typified the beauty of the people who dwelled in the eastern part of Nyumbani: a narrow, mahogany-hued oval with flashing black eyes, high cheekbones, narrowly flaring nose, and full lips. The curve of her clean-shaven pate would rouse the passion of any young warrior of the vast yellow plain called the Tamburure, for the various tribes that dwelt there deemed hair on the head of a woman an abomination.
Yet the young woman, whose name was Katisa, was not satisfied with what the mirror showed her. Frowning into the surface of the prize the warriors of her clan, the Kitoko, had taken from a trading-caravan that had ventured too close to Ilyassai territory, she adjusted the coils at her wrists and rearranged the draping of the muvazi. She wanted to look perfect for the young warrior with whom she would soon be mated.
Then she let out a startled cry as the mirror suddenly showed another face, leering over her shoulder. Anger rose within her as she turned to face the intruder. No man was permitted to enter the manyatta of an Ilyassai woman on the day she was to be wed. Yet here one stood, shadowing the entrance-hole of the leather dwelling.
Recognizing her unwelcome guest, Katisa scowled, and her lips curled in undisguised scorn. For the man was Chitendu, the oibonok of the Kitoko clan. A combination of shaman, sorcerer and priest of Ajunge the Spear-God, the highest deity in the Ilyassai pantheon, the oibonok’s status was second only to that of the ol-arem, the clan’s chieftain.
The Kitoko clan’s ol-arem was Mubaku, Katisa’s father.
“You dare to look upon me in my manyatta before my mating?” Katisa demanded incredulously. “Leave at once, or my father and Karamu will hear of it. Is that what you want?”
The oibonok did not move. Clad in a cow-hide robe that covered him from throat to foot, his sinister appearance was heightened by a headpiece of black wood. Though he was known to be of late middle rains, Chitendu’s face betrayed scant sign of advancing age. His cold eyes, vulpine features and knottily muscled frame were at odds with the nobility of feature and form that characterized most Ilyassai.
“I come only to inspect what will soon be mine,” the oibonok said, exposing his teeth in a sinister smile. “By now, you should be aware that nothing comes between Chitendu and what he desires.”
In a swift blur of motion, Katisa reached beneath the mat that served as her bed and pulled out a long-bladed dagger.
“This stands between you and I, oibonok,” she said between clenched teeth. “Come past it, if you dare.”
The edge in her voice was as keen as the one on her blade. Even so, Chitendu laughed.
“You wrong me, child,” he said in a mocking tone. “I was merely calling to your attention the agreement reached between your father and myself. Surely, you have not forgotten that if your betrothed, Karamu, fails in his olmaiyo today, you will be entrusted to me as a Bride of Ajunge.”
Katisa had not forgotten. Karamu, the warrior she loved, had nearly come to blows with Chitendu when the oibonok made known his interest in her. Mubaku interceded with an alternative to which Karamu had readily agreed.
The young warrior was due to undergo his olmaiyo, the ritual in which Ilyassai youths claimed their manhood through the single-handed slaying of a lion. Mubaku’s resolution had thus been simple: if Karamu succeeded in killing his lion, he would then wed Katisa. If the lion slew the warrior instead, Katisa would become
