She could only watch in helpless horror as Karamu’s spear missed its mark. And she saw it was a streak of green luminescence, like an errant bolt of lightning, that deflected Karamu’s weapon from its course.
Now the enormous weight of the lion bore Karamu to the ground. Beneath the protection of his shield, he drove his simi toward the heart of the snarling beast. But a glowing green sheath formed along the blade of the short sword, blunting the weapon’s thrust.
Mind reeling in disbelief, Katisa watched as emerald light formed around Ngatun’s claws, enhancing the lion’s power as he tore into the thick rhinoceros-hide of the shield. Inexorably, the lion peeled away the only barrier that separated him from the human who had dared to challenge him.
Talons ripped red wounds in Karamu’s flesh. Fanged jaws closed over the warrior’s face as he continued to strike futile blows with his simi. Katisa screamed soundlessly at the sight of the body she had once embraced as the black-maned beast continued its attack.
Then the focus changed again. Now the figure of Chitendu dominated the scene. The oibonok stood rigidly immobile, eyes closed and arms upraised. Hovering only a few feet above his headpiece was a sphere of emerald fire. Threads of green light coruscated across its blazing surface. Katisa realized that Chitendu could manipulate those threads in any way he pleased. This was a new kind of sorcery, ominous and forbidding.
Frantically, she looked to the other warriors, and to her father. Were they not aware of what the oibonok had done? Why were they not butchering Chitendu for his crime? Whey had they not understood that it was necessary to save Karamu, who had been robbed of his ability to fend off the lion?
The answer to her desperate, unspoken questions lay in the warriors’ faces. Slack-jawed, vacant-eyed ... they saw only what Chitendu intended them to see. The green sphere, the luminous tendrils ... none of those manifestations of sorcery registered in their benumbed senses. Illusions created by the oibonok were all they saw.
Chitendu opened his eyes and lowered his arms. The emerald sphere winked out of existence, leaving not even an afterimage to mark its presence. Abruptly, the mindless glaze disappeared from the warriors’ eyes. Surging forward in a wave of sinew and steel, they plunged their spears into the crimson-jawed beast that crouched over what was left of Karamu.
Chitendu looked directly at her ... and grinned.
Beyond further anguish, Katisa watched passively as a black fog began to envelop the scene. Soon, the blackness became absolute, and she floated in nothingness, devoid of light, devoid of feeling ... but not devoid of sound.
It was a low, chilling cachinnation that rose from the periphery of nowhere. At first, it was only a soft whisper. Then it became hideous, all-too-familiar laughter that grew in intensity until it boomed like the thunder of a thousand war-drums. Katisa writhed and groaned as she struggled to free herself from the grip of the nightmare ...
She sat bolt upright on her sleeping-mat. Her sweat-drenched body trembled, and the pain returned to her welted back. Her eyes darted toward the entrance to her manyatta, half-expecting to discover the shadowy shape of Chitendu lurking there. But she saw only a circle of flickering firelight.
Despite the pain in her back and shoulders, Katisa dragged herself to her feet, wrapped a length of cloth around her body, and squeezed through the doorway of the manyatta. Despite the lateness of the hour, she was determined to speak with the one person in the clan she believed she could still trust.
HALF-HIDDEN IN A GARMENT of zebra-hide, Mizuna squatted in the center of her manyatta like a benign spider in its web. The dim light that filtered through the openings in the leather dwelling softened the network of creases that seamed her ancient face. The scattered piles of roots, stems, leaves and other bits of plant matter with which she plied her healing trade were obscured by deep shadows.
Katisa sat near the entrance. She had thought she would have needed to rouse the older woman from a sound slumber. But she found Mizuna wide awake, her dark eyes lively in a way that belied her advancing rains. As the women talked, they sipped from a bowl filled with the pinkish mixture of milk and cow’s-blood that was the staple of the Ilyassai diet.
“It almost seems that you were expecting me,” Katisa said after she had told the herb-woman of the dream-vision she was certain had been sent by Chitendu.
“I was,” Mizuna confirmed. “Since the time your mother, Junyari, died of a fever I could not cure, I have tried to take her place for you. So, I knew you would come to me before you do whatever you are going to do.”
“But I don’t know what I am going to do!” Katisa cried. “I just know that I will not go to Chitendu to be a Bride of Ajunge. Either he or I will die before that happens.”
“Yes,” mused Mizuna, seemingly unmindful of the ferocity in Katisa’s voice. “Chitendu is a devil in human form. I knew him of old, before he disappeared from the Tamburure, then came back a different man, with a name that was not the same as the one his parents gave him. I understand how you feel, Katisa.”
She touched the younger woman’s hand.
“There is another way for you,” the herb-woman said. “It is a very dangerous way, but it is better than killing. If you take it, you may one day wish you had become a Bride of Ajunge after all.”
“What is this way?” Katisa asked.
“Exile,” Mizuna said.
“Exile?” Katisa repeated in a whisper. “But you know as well as I that exile means death. Where would I go? To the Zamburu? The Turkhana? The Place of Stones?”
At the latter mention,
