“Katiiiiiiisa ... come.”
Only her lightning quickness saved her from the first vicious thrust at her stomach. Her dagger parried the next blow, and the one after that. But she was being forced to retreat by the attack of the dead thing. She fought defensively, unwilling to add to Karamu’s terrible wounds.
“Katiiiiiiisa ... come.”
Even as she retreated, she noticed that after its initial flare, the emerald glow surrounding Karamu’s corpse was dimming. Bits of rotting flesh were falling. The strokes of the simi were weakening.
“Cooome ... Katiiiiiiisa.”
The voice had changed. No longer did it mimic that of Karamu. Katisa recognized the new voice. It was Chitendu’s.
The mere thought of the oibonok’s name sent a torrent of rage flooding through Katisa. Chitendu had pursued her after all ... in the most hideous way he could devise. She leaped to the attack. The clangor of her dagger against the dead thing’s blade echoed through the trees. It was Chitendu she fought now, not her dead lover. She battled with the fury of a lioness.
Now, the dead thing’s movements slowed. Katisa saw an opening. Her blade flashed in the moonlight. The dead thing’s simi spun to the ground. She plunged her weapon into a heart that had long since stopped beating. The dead thing staggered. Its nimbus faded to a faint glimmer.
But it did not fall.
“Katiiiiiiisa ...”
The dead thing lurched heavily against her, even as she desperately attempted to wrench her dagger from rotting flesh. A bony hand jerked the boar tusk from her neck, then snaked around her waist. As sharp teeth snapped at her skin in a ghastly parody of a lover’s caress, Katisa cried out in pain and horror.
Her heel caught on a root and she fell backward. The dead thing landed on top of her. Its teeth slashed beast-like at her breasts and throat. Katisa struggled wildly as she and the dead thing rolled across the forest floor in a macabre embrace. The green glow was almost gone now, as was most of the flesh on the dead thing’s face. The movement of its limbs slowed, then stopped.
One last time, it called her name, in the ghost of a whisper:
“Katiiiiiiisa ...
The sound echoed endlessly as darkness closed on Katisa’s consciousness.
DAWN’S CRIMSON LIGHT greeted Katisa as she awakened. The moment she opened her eyes, she realized that the horror she remembered from the night before was more than a mere dream. For she was lying at the bottom of the tree, in the embrace of a skeleton.
With a cry of disgust, Katisa shoved the clinging bones aside and rose to her feet. She brushed her skin, as though that action could cleanse her. A slight charnel scent wafted from bits of rotting flesh strewn haphazardly across the ground. Nearby, Katisa saw the paw-prints of a hyena. The scavenger had come close to where she had lain unconscious. Then it had abruptly turned away.
Was it the dawa that had driven off the leopard, Katisa wondered. Or had the animal been repulsed by what it had seen, rather than what it smelled?
She looked again at the disjointed skeleton.
“Karamu,” she murmured as she touched the teeth-marks on her skin. Then she turned away from the skeleton and climbed the tree to retrieve her and the pouch of biki and jawuma leaves. On the way up, she avoided contact with Karamu’s broken spear, which was embedded in the tree’s bark.
Her expression settled into a grim mask as she descended, then plucked her dagger from the ribs of the skeleton. The bones may have been Karamu’s, she thought, but the will that had animated the warrior’s corpse, and beclouded her mind so she could not tell the difference between dream and reality, was that of someone else.
She knew that Chitendu had done something forbidden and unspeakable. He had inserted his spirit into Karamu’s corpse, transforming it into a mindless creature that did Chitendu’s bidding. Long ago, the oibonoks of the Ilyassai clans had renounced such evil use of sorcery. But not Chitendu.
Her spirit had prevailed over that of the oibonok. But the victory gave her no joy. She could only hope that she had slain Chitendu’s spirit ... if that were possible.
Katisa searched the ground upon which the bones lay. She spotted the boar’s tusk that the dead thing had torn from her. She picked it up and re-knotted its leather thong around her neck. With a final glance at Karamu’s remains, she turned and began to make her way through the strip of forest.
When she emerged on the other side, she saw what Kamayu and the Lost Clan had seen many rains ago. Like an open mouth, a small canyon split the stony face of the towering escarpment. Here was the way to the Ardhi ya Nyama.
Katisa began walk across the stretch of grass and trees that led to the canyon. But before she reached the opening, a sudden wind blew behind her. In its swift passage, the leaves and grass whispered her name: “Katiiiiiiisa ...”
And as she entered the canyon, Katisa wondered if she would ever be truly free from Chitendu and the evil he served.
THE BLACKSMITH
AND THE BAMBUTI
OTHER THAN IMARO AND Dossouye, Pomphis is my favorite character. At the time Imaro first began taking shape in my imagination, Pomphis was there, too. The idea of an outsized warrior like Imaro teaming up with a pygmy intrigued me. By the way, back then the term “pygmy” was not considered a pejorative in describing the small people who live in the forests of Central Africa. These days, the preferred term is “Mbuti” or “Bambuti,” and that’s the reference I will continue to use.
Indirectly, I may have been influenced by Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in conceiving Imaro and Pomphis. But
