CHAPTER EIGHT

INTO THE RIVER

Mukiti and Iyangura stood at the edge of the riverbank.  Fragments of clamshells littered the wet soil.  And numerous hoofprints indented the mud.

They had not spoken during the long walk along the winding forest trail.  Mukiti released Iyangura’s hand from his.  He looked at her, then took her shoulders in his hands.  No longer did she smile.  Tears welled at the edges of her eyes.  She was using all her self-control to keep them there.

“Are you afraid?” Mukiti asked.

“I am trying not to be,” Iyangura replied, speaking for the first time since the sun had risen that morning.

“But you cannot forget what I said before we left Tubondo.”

“No.  I cannot.”

Mukiti laughed.  His hands remained on her shoulders, and his mirth caused his palms to press rhythmically against her collarbones.  Iyangura stared at him.  She had never imagined that a Bashumbu could laugh.

“The words I spoke were for your people, not for you,” he said when his laughter stopped.  “I would never do anything to harm you.  Do you believe me?”

“I am trying to,” said Iyangura.

Mukiti shifted his grip from her shoulders to her arms.  Then, without warning, he leaped into the river, carrying Iyangura with him.  The power in his legs carried them in a high arc, father than any human muscles could have done.  Iyangura’s mouth was in an outcry as they sank beneath the surface.

Water poured into her mouth and down her throat.  Her eyes bulged wide in panic as the Bashumbu bore her further and deeper into the river.  But she did not choke, and she did not drown.  The water seemed to flow through her, as though her skin had become a membrane through which liquid could find easy passage.

She looked at Mukiti, who smiled at her.  Then he opened his hands and let her go.

Immediately, she shot toward the surface.  Streaks of white paint fell from her eyelids.  Red clay spiraled around her like blood.  When her head broke the surface, she gulped air – and gasped as though she had just inhaled a handful of water.  With a cry of consternation, she sank back into the river.

Mukiti took her in his arms then.  His touch was gentle.  A vagrant current eddied beneath her mushuku.

This is your home now, Iyangura, Mukiti said, his words rising like bubbles in her mind. My people will be your people.  You will learn to love the river – and me.

He continued to hold her as they floated downward, downward toward the illumination of the Deep.

In subsequent days, the Bana-Tubondo slaughtered and ate some of the goats Mukiti had brought them.  But the meat had an indefinable taste of the river that rendered it unpalatable.  And the goats the Bana-Tubondo allowed to live never bore young.

CHAPTER NINE

MPACA RECEIVES NEWS

The ....Deep.. ..Forest.... was unlike any other.  Its trees grew gigantically tall, with black bark harder than stone.  Moss hung from their branches like cloaks of shadow.  Lianas grew thick as pythons, and sometimes they could be seen to move sluggishly.  Leaves whispered secrets to each other even when the wind was still.

Animals behaved differently in the ....Deep.. ..Forest...., where strife reigned and peace hid fearfully.  Ngai the gorilla waged constant warfare with Kumbusu the chimpanzee, and sometimes the forest would echo with the ferocity of their battles over each other’s females.  Troops of carnivorous monkeys chased Kibira the leopard through the treetops.  Bongo antelope clashed fiercely with the giraffe-like okapi beneath dark boughs laden with carnivorous fruit.

The forest was a reflection of its Bashumbu, Mpaca.  And it was no place for a creature as insignificant as Kitundukutu the cricket.  Still Mpaca was Kitundukutu’s master, and the cricket served him well.  His tiny green body trembled as he finished telling Mpaca what he had seen and heard in the Butu, and in Tubondo.

The Bashumbu roared in rage as he absorbed the news.  His voice rose louder than the trumpeting of Njoku the elephant.  He swung his hand at a nearby tree.  His long, hooked claws gouged four parallel wounds in its adamantine bark.  Mpaca ignored the tree’s groan of protest.

His open mouth bared leopard’s fangs at Kitundukutu.  The only other feature that could be seen in the hairy mat of his face was his eyes: two circles of crimson bisected by slit, gold-colored pupils. 

“Damn this Shemwindo!” Mpaca bellowed.  “Was it not enough that he defeated me with his tooth of iron?  Now, he becomes kin to Mukiti, and my kin in the Butu want to raise a son of his to be a Bashumbu!”

He roared again, and the leaves on the trees clung together in terror.  Mpaca glared down at Kitundukutu as though he meant to squash the cricket into the ground.  Kitundukutu remained motionless.  He knew Mpaca would not deliberately kill him.  Kitundukutu was too valuable as a spy, a window to the world outside the ....Deep.. ..Forest.....  But when Mpaca succumbed to his mindless rages, anything could happen …

Abruptly, Mpaca’s anger subsided.  He cocked his head to one side.  Then his body remained as still as one of his trees.  The dark, stringy hair that covered his body twitched in rhythm with his thoughts.

“Tell me again what Mukiti said at the end of the ceremony,” he commanded.

“He forbade the Bana-Tubondo from going into the river, Kitundukutu chirped.  “He said if they did, his people would tear out their backbones …”

“He is planning something,” Mpaca interrupted.  “That one never does anything without reason.”

And you never do anything with reason, thought Kitundukutu.  Wisely, he kept that observation behind his multifaceted eyes.

Mpaca’s eyes narrowed in thought.

“What does a Mwami do after the marriage of one of his kinswomen?” he asked.

“He goes to his wives,” Kitundukutu replied.

“That’s when it will happen!” Mpaca roared.  “That’s when Nkuba and the others will try to create their Bashumbu-of-the-Ground!  Haooor!  If waterlogged Mukiti can make trouble, so can I!”

He glared down at the cricket.

“You, Kitundukutu – fly back to Tubondo,” he commanded.  “Wait until Shemwindo has finished with his wives.  Meet him in his house.  And tell him this …”

The cricket listened carefully to Mpaca’s words.  Then he repeated them to the Bashumbu.  Mpaca growled in satisfaction, then sent Kitundukutu on his way.