The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (29 page)

“You mock me, then dare to ask for a
kwabo
? I’ll give you a
kwabo
!
Guards! Take this jackal, give him fifty lashes, and remove him from
Dedougou!”

Struggling wildly, Gimmile was dragged from the throne room.
Bankassi gloated, his position at Konondo’s court still secure.

Another man might have died from Konondo’s cruel punishment.
But hatred burned deep in Gimmile. Hatred kept him alive while the
blood from his lacerated back speckled his stumbling trail away from
Dedougou. Hatred carried him deep into a forbidden grove in the
Mossi forest, to the hidden shrine of Legba....

(Dossouye’s eyes widened at the mention of the accursed name of
Legba, the god of apostates and defilers. His worship, his very name,
had long ago been outlawed in the kingdoms bordering the Gulf of
Otongi. At the sound of Legba’s name, Dossouye drew away from
Gimmile.)

In a single bitter, blasphemous night, Legba had granted Gimmile’s
entreaty.
Baraka
, a mystic power from the god’s own hand, settled
in Gimmile’s
kalimba
...and invaded Gimmile’s soul. Wounds miracu
lously healed, mind laden with vengeance, Gimmile had emerged
from the shrine of evil. He was more than a
bela
now. He was a bearer
of
Baraka
, a man to be feared.

On a moonless night, Gimmile stood outside the walls of Dedougou.
Harsh notes resounded from his
kalimba
. And he sang...

The king of Dedougou is bald as an egg.

His belly sags like an elephant’s,

His teeth are as few as a guinea fowl’s,

And his
bela
has no voice....

In the court of Konondo, the people cried out in horror when every
strand of the king’s hair fell from his head. Konondo shrieked in pain
and fear as his teeth dropped from his mouth like nuts shaken from
a tree. The pain became agony when his belly distended, ripping
through the cloth of his regal robes. Only the
bela
Bankassi’s voice
failed to echo the terror and dismay that swiftly became rampant
in Dedougou. Tortured, inhuman mewlings issued from Bankassi’s
throat, nothing more.

Gimmile had his vengeance. Soon, however, the
bela
learned he
had not been blessed by Legba’s gift of
Baraka
. For Legba’s gifts were
always accompanied by a price, and Legba’s price was always a curse.

Gimmile could still sing about the great deeds of warriors of the
past, or about gods and goddesses and the creation of the world, or
about the secret speech of animals. But the curse that accompanied
Gimmile’s
Baraka
was this: The songs he sang about the living,
including himself, came true!

“And it is a curse, Dossouye,” Gimmile said, his tale done, his
fingers resting idly on the
kalimba
’s keys.

“Word of what I could do spread throughout Mossi. People sought
me out as vultures seek out a corpse. They wanted me to sing them
rich, sing them beautiful, sing them brave or intelligent. I would
not do that. I had wanted only to repay Konondo and Bankassi for
what they had done to me. Still, the
Baraka
remained within me...
unwanted, a curse. Men like the
daju
you killed surrounded me like
locusts, trying to force me to sing them cities of gold. Instead, I sang
myself away from them all.”

“And you—
sang
this rock, where no such rock has a right to be?”
Dossouye asked, her voice tight with apprehension.

“Yes,” Gimmile said. “I sing, and Legba provides.”

“Legba sent you this tower,” Dossouye said slowly, realization
dawning as Gimmile rose to his feet. Gimmile nodded.

“And Legba has also sent—”

“You,” Gimmile confirmed. His smile remained warm and
sincere; not at all sinister as he flicked the keys of his
kalimba
and
began to sing....

Dossouye’s hand curled around her swordhilt. She meant to
smash the
kalimba
and silence its spell...but it was too late for that.
Gimmile’s fingers flew rapidly across the keys. Dossouye’s fingers left
her swordhilt. She unfastened the clasp of the belt that secured the
weapon to her waist. With a soft thump, the scabbard struck the
cloth-covered floor.

Gimmile placed the
kalimba
on a nearby table and spoke to it in
the same manner Dossouye spoke when issuing a command to Gbo.
As he walked toward her, the instrument continued to play, even
though Gimmile no longer touched it.

Scant heed did Dossouye pay to this latest manifestation of
Gimmile’s
Baraka
. Taking her hands, Gimmile raised the
ahosi
to her
feet. She did not resist him. Gimmile sang his love to her while his
fingers tugged at the laces of her cuirass.

He sang a celebration to the luster of her onyx eyes. She stopped
his questing hands and removed her armor for the second time that
day. He shaped her slender body with sweet words that showed her
the true beauty of her self; the beauty she had hidden from herself for
fear others might convince her it was not really there.

Gimmile’s garments fell from him like leaves from a windblown
tree. Spare and rangy, his frame was a male twin of Dossouye’s. He
sang her into an embrace.

While Gimmile led her to a stone bed softened by piles of patterned
cloth, the
ahosi
in Dossouye protested stridently but ineffectively. She
had known love as an
ahosi
; but always with other women soldiers,
never a man. To accept the seed of a man was to invite pregnancy,
and a pregnant
ahosi
was a dead one. The
ahosi
were brides of the
King of Abomey. The King never touched them, and death awaited
any other man who did. Such constraints meant nothing now, as
Gimmile continued to sing.

Dossouye’s fingers toyed with the beads in Gimmile’s braids. Her
mouth branded his chest and shoulders with hot, wet circles. Only
when Gimmile drew her down to the bed did he pause in his singing.
Then the song became theirs, not just his, and they sang it together.
And when their mouths and bodies met, Gimmile had no further
need for the insidious power of Legba’s
Baraka
. But the
kalimba
continued to play.

Abruptly, uncomfortably, Dossouye awoke. A musty odor invaded
her nostrils. Something sharp prodded her throat. Her eyelids jarred
open.

The light in Gimmile’s chamber was dim, Dossouye lay on her
back, bare flesh abrading against a rough, stony surface. Her gaze
wandered upward along a length of curved, shining steel—a
sword!
Her vision and her mind snapped into clear focus then, the lingering
recall of the day and night before thrust aside as she gazed into the
face of the bearded
daju
, the attacker whose life she had spared.

“Where is...
moso
?” the
daju
demanded. “You have it...I know.”

Dossouye did not know what he meant. She shifted her weight,
reflexively moving away from the touch of the swordpoint at her
throat. Something sharp dug at her left shoulderblade.

Ignoring the
daju
she turned, slid her hand beneath her shoulder;
and grasped a small, sharp-edged object. She raised herself on one
elbow and intently examined the thing she held in her hand.

It was a figurine cast in brass, no more than three inches high,
depicting a robed
bela
playing a
kalimba
. Beaded braids of hair;
open, smiling face...every detail had been captured perfectly by the
unknown craftsman. The joy she had experienced the night before
and the fear she was beginning to feel now were both secondary to
the sudden pang of sadness she experienced when she recognized the
tiny brass face as Gimmile’s.

“That is...
moso!”
the
daju
shouted excitedly. Eagerly he reached
for the figurine. Ignoring the
daju
’s sword, Dossouye pulled the
moso
away from the thief’s grasp. Her eyes swiftly scanned the chamber.
With a tremor of horror, she realized she was lying on a bare stone
floor next to a broken ruin of a bed.

“Hah!” spat the
daju
. “You know how...to bring
moso
to life. Legba
made...Gimmile into
moso
to pay for
Baraka
. But
moso
can...come
to life...and sing wishes true. Mahadu and I...found
moso
near here.
Could not...bring to life. We were taking
moso
...to
Baraka-
man...
when we saw you. Now...you tell...how to bring
moso
to life. Tell...and
might...let you live.”

Dossouye stared up at the
daju
. Murder and greed warred on his
vulpine face. His swordpoint hovered close to her throat. And she
had not the slightest notion how Gimmile could be made to live.

With blurring speed, she hurled the
moso
past the broken bed.
The figurine bounced once off jagged stone, then disappeared. With
a strangled curse, the
daju
stared wildly after the vanished prize,
momentarily forgetting his captive. Dossouye struck aside the
daju
’s
swordarm and drove her heel into one of his knees. Yelping in pain,
the
daju
stumbled. His sword dropped from his hand. Dossouye
scrambled to her feet.

Twisting past the
daju
, Dossouye dove for his fallen sword. And
a galaxy of crimson stars exploded before her eyes when the booted
foot of the
daju
collided with the side of her head.

Dossouye fell heavily, rolled, and lay defenseless on her back,
waves of sick pain buffeting her inside her skull. Recovering his blade,
the
daju
limped toward her, his face contorted with hate.

“I will...bring
moso
to life...without you,” he grated. “Now...
Abomean bitch...
die!”

He raised his curved blade. Dossouye lay stunned, helpless. Without
a weapon in her hand, not even her
ahosi
-trained quickness could save
her now. She tensed to accept the blow that would slay her.

The
daju
brought his weapon down. But before it reached
Dossouye’s breast, a brown-clad figure hurled itself into the path
of the blade. Metal bit flesh, a voice cried out in wrenching agony,
and Gimmile lay stretched between Dossouye and the
daju
. Blood
welled from a wound that bisected his side.

The
daju
stared down at Gimmile, mouth hanging open, eyes white
with dread and disbelief. Dossouye, consumed with almost feral rage,
leaped to her feet, tore the
daju
’s sword from his nerveless grasp, and
plunged the blade so deeply through his midsection that the point
ripped in a bloody shower through the flesh of his back.

Without a sound, without any alteration of the expression of
shock frozen on his face, the
daju
sank to the floor. Death took him
more quickly than he deserved.