and an eagle-glyph on the other.
His expression suddenly turning grave, Youssou Ousman Ganaar Diop stretched out his arms. Gnarled and ringed fingers peaked out from within his voluminous cotton robe as he exclaimed, “You must choose! The one on the left to your father and the battle without! The other to the final ordeal and that which all men covet!”
Sangara stared at the two yawning mouths. He thought of the men with whom he rode with; Daan Toura the cheerful giant, the dour chief Sannou of Kindou, the cavalier brothers; FaKoli and Nfansu, and the valiant heroes of Toura, Cisse, and Ba-nde. Though their lives were not his to worry over, he could not help but wonder their fate. Then again, the power that coursed in his veins awakened the desire to know what else was for the taking. What final boon is being offered? He may now speak with the voice of his father, but the curiosity of a child still held sway. He drew his sword and entered the darkened gateway.
* * *
A cold breeze blew brushed past him as he walked through the enclosure. A chill ran across his flesh as he felt a foreboding presence seeking his soul and beating life. The beauty of the outer chamber was now absent, replaced by a tight winding cavity without light or smooth surface. Untrodden gravel crunched under Sangara’s weight and the tunnel’s narrowness suffocated him. He was either entering the guts of the mountain or Jahanaba—hell.
At the exit, he spied another vast chamber. Almost identical to the others, except for the fact that he stood on an unlit tier above the cave floor. The familiar mist covered the floor with its eerie phosphorescent glow that ignited the entire space from top to bottom. He spied a cave to the far left and the fountain to the right. The presence of neither man nor beast could be sensed but he knew an ambush would greet him.
A set of stone steps led down into the nether level of the great hollow and with sword in hand he descended. His vestments were tattered and bloodstained, his blade notched, resembling a blunted tool than a keen cohort. But his hard-chiseled arms spoke of mighty efforts and crippling strikes. His ears caught the faint clash of steel and chaos, but the cave was empty. He thought to follow the sounds, but as Youssou’s voice seemed everywhere, so were these muffled cries.
At the bottom of the stairs, the mist faded to a thin sheet carpeting the bottom. The dimming luminescence darkened the corners allowing only the cave and the third fountain to be seen. The floor felt damp and filthy as a muck-swamp or a flooded lowland. The smell of decaying refuse rose from the muddy surface to choke Sangara’s corded throat. He counted thirty paces to the fountain and sixty to the cave. Maybe it leads to the outside or abode of some unimaginable horror. Steadily, he crept backwards toward the fountain, not wanting to be taken from behind. He noticed as he moved further and further away from the cryptic lair the devilish mist pulsated with its pale sickly glow. He judged the distance, concluding the prize of mysterious waters must be behind him. And swiftly turning, came face to face with a pair of burning red eyes and jagged lips murmuring foul words between putrid gasps of air.
Sangara felt his body convulse and fall back in violent alarm. His feet losing its balance sent him onto the slim and vapor surface. Frantically raising his sword, he saw an old man, back crooked with age, skin leathered with wear, and eyes of sparkling deviltry. His ragged garment hung in the tatters of an ill-fitting tunic and a long cord adorned with massive claws sagged from around his neck. Sangara quickly gauged this new threat with a little humor.
“I’ve fought a murderous rabble of armed men,” he mused rising from the murky bed, “and triumphed over the chief of the Gongberou. If you be a buwaa, you inspire little fear.”
The outlandish figure stared intently at the bolstering warrior. Neither smile nor grimace bared itself upon the witch’s stony face. As Sangara stared back, he finally noticed that the fountain, which should have been behind the morbid apparition, was actually the foreboding cave he so gingerly stalked away from. Sangara steadily backed away from this strange phantasm of a man and readied himself for an onslaught.
The strange man, eyes alight and legs braced began to babble and foam at the lips, violently yanking his long necklace, inhaling and exhaling great quantities of air in heaving gust. The mud and mist shifted and splashed around him as an awful disturbance encircled the ragtag witch. His bent form cracked and stretched into a tall figure of a man, but then his body bloated and expanded as the throat of some swamp toad. Pulsing veins inflated with rushing torrents of blood. Arms and legs widened, and thickened with each heaving gasp as the shapeshifter’s massive torso fell on all fours. A bulky armored tail burst from underneath his browned garment, which shredded as it grew. The once grim face undulated and shuddered as each muscle contorted in such grotesque fashion, causing Sangara’s eyes to squint in disgust. An inhuman bellow rolled out of a now course and warped snout as the grim foeman altered himself into the titanic makasutu, a great croc of the Northern rivers.
With relenting speed, dagger-like teeth flashed as its maw sprang forward seeking to grab Sangara’s muscled torso. Sangara dodged out of its deadly range, only to find the ground slick and intractable, causing him to skid across the floor from his mammoth foe. The beast charged, and folding its legs along its scaly body and tail, glided toward Sangara with ardent intent. Bracing himself against the wall, Sangara launched
