I Kings

The day the devils walked out of the bush, King Akusa was in her royal hut in the heart of Kosongo territory, in good spirits. Two of her six wives, Ketwa and Nbinga, had brought in her dinner: bowls of yam, fish stew, and enough palm wine to make her feel mellow.

Her second wife, Ketwa, whom she favored, was much more adept at cooking than any of her other wives.

“Did Ketwa prepare the meal?” the king asked. She knew that he did but liked the way a smile appeared on his face, tender and gently curled, whenever she asked.

“Yes, my king. As always,” Nbinga replied.

“Well, not always,” Ketwa corrected. “When we smell that burning scent, when the fish is too soggy, we know that I am not the cook.”

The king laughed as she washed her hands in a bowl filled with water and sage.

“And you will help prepare the feast for the ceremony? It is only a week away, you know,” she said with a wry smile.

“Of course,” Ketwa said. “Kosii is my favorite nephew. But his mother is an even better cook than I. She is the one who taught me.”

“I am sure she would appreciate the help in any event,” the king said.

She reclined onto the smooth bundles of red, orange, green, and yellow blankets at her back. She looked up at Ketwa.

“Are you not going to join me for some palm wine?”

Ketwa looked at her. He felt drawn to her nighttime skin; her clear, bright eyes; and the silkiness of her breasts as they lay beneath her beaded necklace. He noticed her head as she tilted forward to reach for a cup: bald as her behind, clever in its shape, adorned with blue paint and red gems. She had a king’s head and a warrior’s mind inside of it.

“Will the others be jealous?” Ketwa asked as he poured the wine.

“Why? They will be joining us too,” said the king, and she smiled.

“And who will tend to our children if I am here?” he retorted.

“You are one of many.”

She brought the cup to her lips just as young Reshkwe ran into the hut. He was panting heavily and fell to his knees at the edge of the bowls of food laid out before the king.

“You dare enter without announcement?” Ketwa rebuked.

Reshkwe’s forehead touched the ground.

“Forgiveness,” he shouted between pants. “Forgiveness, King Akusa. But you must come! It is a nightmare. A nightmare has come to us!”

What could have reached the village so far from the sea as it was: days and days of trekking through the savanna where lion and hyena lurk, not to mention across a river teeming with hippo and crocodile? The nearest neighbors, the Gussu, were days away and were respectful enough to come always bearing gifts, nothing nightmarish as the boy described. King Akusa wondered about the possibilities of a curse, but reminded herself of the wards: the village was large; the drumming was regular, sometimes loud enough to frighten birds from trees; and the ancestors were relentlessly respected with offerings of only the most magnificent bananas from the harvest. There was no reason to believe that they were angry and had sent some form of plague. If anything, they would be pleased by how the village thrived, populated with five generations of people upon whose faces the ancestors lived. And soon, they would have gate guardians for the first time since the war.

The king reached behind her blankets for her spear and shield. Upon the latter was a carving of her family’s avatar: a jagged little warrior, shaped like a lightning flash, with their weapons raised high in triumph.

“Shall I summon the guard, my king?” Nbinga asked.

“Have them meet me on the way to the gate.”

King Akusa darted out of the dwelling with incredible speed. She rushed past dozens and dozens of huts, a trail of red dust flowing behind her. The ground was dry because there were still at least two months before the rainy season. The sun was just beginning to descend behind the trees. She looked down to see her shadow, quick and long, beneath her. Soon, she heard the pounding of her guards coming up from behind. They moved in like a coming storm and eventually caught up to her. Together, they reached the village square. And together, they came to a screeching halt.

One man gagged. Another vomited. Three women recoiled. Four men nearly retreated. King Akusa the Brave merely narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on her spear. The boy was right. Demons had somehow made it to their home.

Not somehow. Next to these strangely dressed things, whose skin was like having no skin at all, was a Gussu. He stepped forward and knelt before the king. He had the apologetic eyes of a friend, but she did not trust him.

She turned to see the guards in various states of disarray. She banged the dull end of her spear against the ground and suddenly, they all came to attention. She cautioned the guards not to go near the strangers and to avoid touching them. Grateful for her wisdom, they surrounded her in a protective half circle and pointed their spears at the intruders.

“Are they dead?” Muzani, the tallest, asked.

“Move away,” the king ordered, not at all masking her irritation at their forgetting she was the greatest warrior among them and could readily protect herself, even against the unliving. She looked down at the Gussu who knelt before her.

“I’m confused,” she said as she dug her spear into the ground. “Your position indicates respect, but you brought pestilence to my village. Explain yourself immediately or you and these demons shall suffer together.”

She would have expected such things of the mountain people with no name, who had once come down from their perches in the clouds and attacked her village unprovoked. She was a girl then but remembered them clearly because of their sharpened teeth and the white paint that garishly adorned their faces. The no-name mountain people more than liked war; it seemed for them a kind of religion, the thing that defined them. To remove war from their hearts would be akin to removing the ancestral bonds from her own people. They would merely dissolve and all that would be left would be smoky wisps and a foul odor. But none of that meant that the Kosongo wouldn’t fight back. On the contrary, the king’s mother led the charge against them, her spear held high as though she had grabbed lightning from above.

“Not demons,” the frightened man said in serviceable Kosongo tongue. “Friends.”

He signaled for the demons to bow and they did. They were less ugly in that position. The king ordered the guards to lower their weapons but to also exercise caution. With an easily understandable hand gesture, she instructed the intruders to stand. She couldn’t stop staring at them. They had hair the color of sand. She looked each one in the eye. One wore a curious object over the eyes that made them look small and beady. And her initial assessment was correct: all three demons were missing skin. One of them opened its mouth to speak. Broken as it was, she recognized it and suspected bad magic.

“Greetings,” it said. “I am Brother Gabriel. And I am here to bring you the good news.”