Muezzinland (5 page)

Next day the riverboat was attacked by an octopus crew, genetic outcasts from an earlier decade, doubtless created by some commercial country upstream—Togo-IBM perhaps, a tiny land indicated with a smiley double helix on Msavitar's maps. They pulled hooked poles from the riverboat's bollards and attacked the suckered tentacles, slashing and stamping, blue blood everywhere, until the crew sank below the waters and began wrapping themselves around the rudder. Clearly they were hungry. Afraid, Captain Nfor decided to risk a laser shot. He leaned over the boat and aimed a low power beam into the riverboat's wake, thumbing up the intensity until the water steamed, then boiled. The octopus crew floated away on a tide of blue bubbles and twitching limbs, their bloodshot eyes protruding above the water to send baleful glares.

But this battle was merely a prelude to a struggle far more unpleasant.

Late afternoon of the eighth day found them twenty kilometres from Wiaga, bearing east towards Bolgatanga Bridge, which, according to Captain Nfor, they would make the following evening. Msavitar seemed jumpy. Nshalla banished Gmoulaye to her musician friends and tried to talk to him, but he rejected her advances.

Minutes later, one of the passengers challenged him.

It was too obvious an act to be mistaken, despite the fact that the challenge was spoken in an unknown language. Everybody scattered. Nshalla ran to Captain Nfor, who followed her to the stern of the boat, where Msavitar and his enemy stood sizing one another up.

"Get first aid!" Nshalla demanded. "Get your crew."

"Wait!" Captain Nfor replied in a gruff tone. "Do you not see the haze around their bodies?"

Nshalla looked. The pair did seem misted. "Well?"

"This will be no fight of fists and knives. Obviously both are illusionists. This will be a battle of the aether—"

"But…"

"—as should have been clear to you."

Nshalla stood firm. "Don't talk to
me
like that," she said.

"Ghana is a long way away," came the nonchalant reply.

Nshalla spluttered, but the commencement of the battle pulled her attention away from the captain.

Msavitar attacked first. Nshalla blinked and missed it. He had adopted a warrior guise; skin painted red and black, face caked in white mud, hair piled up into a tower. He glared at his enemy, who took a step back as if shocked.

"They will probe one another for psychological weak spots," Captain Nfor whispered. He bent over like a reed to reach Nshalla's ear, sucking at his fat toke. "I have seen such duels before. The loser will not be able to stand the victor's image, and will like as not jump over the side of the boat to become octopus supper."

Nshalla said nothing. Msavitar's opponent was preparing his onslaught, eyes  closed, lips compressed, nostrils flared. Suddenly he was a fat man, monstrously fat, hair tied back with strings, a leather clout around his hips. Nshalla recognised him from schoolbook memories as a wrestler from the old Nippon Empire; a sumo. She gasped as Msavitar quailed, his warrior image departed.

"The enemy is clever," Captain Nfor whispered. "He is using a cultural attack. That means he must know Msavitar personally. Cultural attack is the most subtle of tortures."

"Why a sumo?"

"Nippon is one of the powerhouses of Pacific Rim culture. The Nipponese despise Aphricans because they believe we have achieved nothing. The enemy is using Msavitar's knowledge against him."

Nshalla awaited Msavitar's response. It came quickly. Instantaneously he changed into a dapper oriental, half moon spectacles gleaming, hair slicked black, wearing a costume of khaki and Docmarten boots. Nshalla recognised him, but…

"Marvellous!" hissed Captain Nfor.

"Who is it?"

"Why, Yang Fu Yuen, of course. The scourge of the civilised world with his nuclear weapon stockpile."

Nshalla understood. Yang Fu Yuen was the last of the little dictators to refuse the persuasions of the Aetherium. A century earlier his grandfather had overthrown Communist rule. This would strike deep into the enemy's psyche: a nuclear threat, hanging over the man like a suffocating cloud. A mushroom cloud.

Already the response came. Msavitar's enemy transformed himself into a great bearded negro, black cloak spread out as if in a great wind, his tree trunk limbs oiled, his teeth flashing. Nshalla gasped and averted her gaze, for this was the image of Buadze, god of the wind, come to claim his prize.

But Msavitar did not quail, leaving Nshalla to ponder the fact that both he and his enemy were intimates of the Gan religion of Accra. Immediately she thought of her mother.

Msavitar gave a great shout and changed himself into Sakumo, the god of war, clad in bronze, hair gummed, arms scarred, costume tinkling with a weight of gold.

But his enemy thought little of this, crouching down with his head in his hands, as if preparing a great assault. Msavitar, still wearing the image of Sakumo, seemed uncertain and he stepped backwards, his trembling hands seeking the rail of the riverboat. Nshalla felt her heart sink. Much as he annoyed her, she wanted him to win against the vicious outsider.

Now Msavitar's enemy stood upright. With a sudden flurry of colour there stood before them a negro woman, buttocks fat, face round, with braided hair, wearing across her shoulder a costume of red and yellow silks. Msavitar stood transfixed, muttering something. Mother. This was his mother. Nshalla cringed, understanding that this could be the mortal blow. Being an illusionist demanded insecurity, selfishness, immaturity, an inability to create identity from relationships with others. If Msavitar hated his mother, this could be the end.

But it seemed it was not. He stood firm. Quick as thought he transformed himself into a negro man, a simple naked villager, tall and dusty, and Nshalla immediately knew this was his enemy's father. So the pair knew one another
very
well. But still the enemy did not fall back.

A stalemate seemed to have arrived. Captain Nfor whispered, "They have used cultural and personal attacks. My guess is that they will now revert to cultural swipes."

He was wrong. Msavitar's enemy again crouched, bowed his head, and then—

There were two Msavitar's. The new one was youthful, somewhat bland, perhaps weak, like a lost antelope, a youth who stood up and stared at Msavitar.

Msavitar collapsed to his knees, unable to take his eyes off the aether apparition. It was himself. Nshalla choked back a shriek of dismay, her hand at her mouth, clutching Captain Nfor's arm. The enemy was striking his deepest blow, confronting Msavitar with the truth of his earlier life, a truth Msavitar must have buried under layers of psychological defence, a truth that, once buried, mutated into a lie and so allowed him to become an illusionist. Msavitar was shaking, crouching, now crawling to the edge of the boat, trying to climb the rail to jump into the water.

And then an owl stood where he had stood.

The enemy gave a piercing shriek. He had become a normal man. He stood legs akimbo, arms outstretched, face twisted into a grimace of horror, breathing in wailing gasps. With a flourish, like a worm escaping a finch, his penis dropped off and bounced across the stern of the boat, to lie still, shrivel, and then vanish. Msavitar's enemy gave one final wail, clutched the flap of skin where his penis had been, then leaped into the river.

There was silence on the riverboat.

Captain Nfor swept his gaze from owl to river and back. "What happened, what happened?"

The owl became a panting, sweating Msavitar.

Nshalla, trying to control the pleasure she felt at getting one over the captain, answered, "I am from Ghana. So was that man, and so is Msavitar. In Ghana, witches change into screech owls and fly about searching for men. Then they peck off the essence of their manhood so that it becomes useless. Had you been born in Ghana you would have known that. Msavitar attacked the crux of his enemy's identity, his manhood. Deprived of that he was nothing, so he jumped into the river."

She ran across to Msavitar, pulling him up. He tried to speak, but exhaustion only allowed a gasping, "Gone? Gone…?"

"Yes, he's gone," Nshalla said excitedly. "You won the duel! Well done. But who was he?"

Msavitar tottered away from her. "I must rest in my room," he said.

Nshalla helped him there. Inside all was chaos. He was untidy. She laid him down on his bed and dragged a blanket over him, then brought him a gourd of water. "Who was he?" she asked again.

"I do not know—"

Despite his fatigue she gripped him by the chin and repeated her question.

"Gracious lady, I swear on my honour that I do not know."

Nshalla spoke just centimetres from his face. "I saw the whole duel. You're from Accra, and so was the man who challenged you. You knew him just as you know your mother. Now who was he?"

Msavitar thrashed about under his blanket. "I swear—"

Through gritted teeth Nshalla said, "I think you attacked us with that static-box. You did, didn't you? Answer me!"

"Static-box? I have no such device. By all the sacred spirits, why would I attack you, then join you? I have had ample opportunity to murder you during our trek from Ashanti, but I have not. See reason, oh, I beg you!"

This was a fair point. Nshalla released him and walked once around his cabin. She knew she was right. She locked the door and returned to the bed.

"I am a simple guide," he whimpered, grinning the obsequious grin.

"You know who he was," Nshalla retorted. "I
know
you know. Never forget that, Msavitar, if that is your real name. I am an educated lady of Accra who knows many things. I may be young and inexperienced at journeying, but I'm no fool. You lie to me at your peril."

"But—"

"If you're one of my mother's agents, well… there'll be a price to pay. D'you understand that?"

He nodded, the grin frozen on his face.

She left him shuddering.

~

From Bolgatanga Bridge they walked north, following the single row of eyes that marked the way. In the evening, thinking they heard the sound of gunfire from the hills ahead, they tapped into the local optical network to discover that a civil war was raging around the town, on one side the elected chief of the vicinity, on the other a group of Baptist Militants armed, rumour had it, with chemical weapons salvaged from tips created in an earlier century by the lords of the West. This sounded perilous. Gmoulaye looked at the gleaming maps laid out on Msavitar's transputer screen and suggested they circle westward, using bush copses as cover.

Msavitar pointed out the rest of the way. Five villages and towns lay between them and Ouagadougou. Looking at the green disk that symbolised Ouagadougou, Gmoulaye shivered. "It is in a forest," she said. "It will be full of the spirits of the afterlife."

"Don't worry," Nshalla carelessly replied. "We'll be fine."

Gmoulaye grunted in response and, as if sulking, repeatedly thumped the point of her deadwood staff into the soil.

So they trekked on. Sleep that night was disturbed by the thunk of shells, the scream of phosphor flares. The velvet black night sky was tainted with smoky trails of red, yellow, and brown. Gmoulaye insisted that they sleep in a hollow dug out by giant bush rats, so that marauding horsemen did not spot their fire and attack. This meant they slept uncomfortably close to one another, but it was necessary. Msavitar curled up into a ball like a jerboa, but Nshalla liked to stretch her arms and legs; here she could not. She grumbled the most.

By the evening of the next day they made Gavrango. It was deserted. Hyenas ran chuckling through lines of mud huts, and everywhere flapping rubbish rustled in the breeze.

Next day they passed through the village of Pago. The locals were goatherds, though they grew fields of millet, okra, and some yams, and they looked at the travellers with suspicious eyes. Even Gmoulaye did not want to stay. Later that day they made Po, a large village surrounded by a corral, but they decided not to make themselves known to the populace, particularly as there seemed to be a number of bodies in trees with smouldering tyres around their necks.

"We are come to an evil place," Gmoulaye said. "It is struggling with itself, killing its own children. That is a bad thing."

Msavitar agreed. "The reports I read said it was one of the handful of countries in the world that had no Aetheria. They deny the existence of local Aetheria, even the Aetherium, and all power is vested in local rulers who pay tribute to the plutocrats of Grosser-Tech-Plc."

"How far away is Manga?" asked Nshalla.

Msavitar whistled at his screen. "Three days at least."

"Then we'd better find a campsite."

Nshalla found herself irritated with Msavitar and his ever ready transputers. She decided that tonight they would all be stolen by a troupe of baboons.

Gmoulaye took them to a valley where they struck camp at the bottom, amidst the rounded stones of a seasonal river. Nshalla gave herself last watch. Leaving her dozing companions, she climbed to the rim of the valley to peer north. Somewhere out there was Mnada. Possibly she herself had not made Muezzinland. Possibly she was quite close. Nshalla pondered on this as she watched shadows across the plain, the shadows of herds of game, of aether aerials, and, higher up, of bat swarms. Somewhere in the distance she saw a red glow; the twin exhausts of a methane-burning car.

For a few seconds she had a surreal vision of Mnada hitching lifts in exotic Eurasian vehicles, making north, ever north.

The next day they tramped in silence through twisted shrubs. The savanna was deserted. Above them a pair of hopeful vultures circled. Used to sea breezes, Nshalla found the heat intolerable, but she was pleased to see Msavitar glaring at every monkey he saw.

They made Manga next evening. It was a sleepy village with one inn, and there Nshalla again tried to rid herself of Msavitar. "Without your transputers there's not a lot you can do," she said. "You'd better go back to Ashanti."

He pondered long on this. "Not yet," he decided. "You still require assistance, gracious ladies, and I can still earn lovely cowries. It is making a living after a fashion, you will agree?"