Questions raced through Ahmadu’s mind. He wondered how this one had come to be so far from its home grazing-ground. Why had it attacked and killed the lion, thus saving Ahmadu’s life? Most of all, the youth wondered whether the buffalo’s murderous fury had spent itself on the dead lion.
Cautiously, Ahmadu raised himself to a sitting position. The movement caught the eye of the buffalo. Slowly, it turned to Ahmadu, who froze in sudden fear. Then the beast trotted purposefully toward the motionless youth.
As the buffalo drew closer, Ahmadu looked closely at its face. What he saw there caused him to tremble in dread ... for the face of this buffalo bore a livid, crimson scar that stood out against its coal-black hide. The scar lay in the exact spot where Ahmadu had slashed the calf several months before ...
Then the buffalo spoke.
IN OUGON, THE YEAR that followed the exile of Ahmadu was a strange one. At first, there seemed little cause for concern. The grey-clad stranger’s antelope-cattle flourished, providing more than enough meat and milk for all the people of Djenne-the-Land. Yet the flesh of the red-eyed beasts did not nourish the people who ate it. Though they experienced none of the suffering of starvation, they grew thin, as though they were eating nothing at all. Even so, no one died – and that prevented the civil war Sankruu had feared.
Two other mysterious occurrences transpired that year ...
The long-delayed rains of Shango never fell. In the past, Shango had at times released his rain much later than was convenient for the Ku-Djenne. But never before had he entirely withheld his life-giving gift. Wise men and women speculated, and fools fulminated. But no one could say why the god of rain, lightning and thunder had forsaken Djenne.
The other mystery was the wound Sankruu had received from Dibango. It never healed. Steadily, it seeped small amounts of blood, never beginning to form scar tissue. Neither the care of his wives nor the ministrations of the herb-doctors affected the insidious bleeding. In time, Sankruu weakened until he became but a shadowy husk of his former robust self. Yet despite the constant bleeding, he did not die.
Fearful whispers and averted eyes began to follow him as he passed. Some speculated that the never-healing wound was caused by the vengeful ghost of Dibango. Others held that the affliction was a curse laid by the gods as punishment for his failure to carry out the ritual of sacrifice. Still others considered it the work of his banished son, Ahmadu.
In Ougon the long, dry year passed in fear and uncertainty. In the other villages of Djenne-the-Land, people also experienced the starvation-without-hunger phenomenon. But no one suffered an affliction like Sankruu’s wound. To the other villages, the passage of time meant little as long as their herds flourished and continued to provide sustenance. The gray-clad stranger became little more than a fading – albeit disquieting – scrap of memory.
To Sankruu, however, the memory remained vivid, because it was inextricably linked with the bitterness of the banishment of his son. The chieftain had ordered a record kept of the number of days that passed since the stranger’s coming. Upon the day that marked a year’s passage, Sankruu prepared himself for the stranger’s promised return.
Accompanied by a contingent of warriors, elders and priests, the chieftain of Ougon set out for the pasture of his village’s cattle. Grimly, he noted that none of the other chieftains of Djenne-the-Land had responded to his request that they join him on this day.
The Sankruu who limped unsteadily between two warriors bore scant resemblance to the mighty figure of a rain ago. His garments clung in loose folds from an emaciated frame, and his dark face was gaunt and weary in mien. A moist red stain marred the middle of his garment, and at times his bony hand trembled as he gripped the stout staff he needed to help him walk. Yet for all his frailty, Sankruu maintained his dignity, and his companions still respected him.
When they reached the pasture where the antelope-cattle grazed on remnants of vegetation, they found the funereally clad stranger waiting. The man’s eyes gleamed coldly as he watched the contingent’s approach. Like a harbinger of doom, he stood silhouetted by the crimson rays of the Nyumbani sun. Silently, he waited for Sankruu to speak.
“You have come to claim your price for the cattle that have saved Djenne-the-Land,” the chieftain said in a voice that was strong enough to belie the weakness of his body.
“Yes,” the stranger agreed. “My price, you will agree, is a simple one. You need only to tell me my name.”
“Your name?” Sankruu repeated hollowly. “How can I know your name? You never told it to us.”
The stranger’s eyes gleamed pitilessly in their hollow sockets. The cloth that covered his mouth moved, as if the lips hidden beneath were shaping themselves into a smile.
“Most unfortunate,” he said. “For in the absence of my name, the price must be your soul. Yours, and those of all the people who ate the flesh of my cattle. You will become my servants, as they are.”
Waving his shroud-swathed arms toward the red-eyed cattle, the stranger uttered an incantation, the very syllables of which caused the Ku-Djenne to shiver in superstitious dread. They stared spellbound as the outlines of the cattle became blurry and indistinct.
Slowly, the shapes of the beasts changed, until they were transformed into things that vaguely resembled men ... naked, hideous, demonic caricatures, purplish-blue in color and still possessing the curved, spiraled horns that sprouted from their foreheads in their former guises. Their eyes rolled in mad anguish, the only indication that these creatures had once been human.
“Shango save us!” cried one of the elders as the demonic creatures moved toward the knot of Ku-Djenne.
The stranger laughed. The sound had a horrible timbre, as though the stranger had seen and done things that had driven him into a
