"A Magharibi friend of mine told me a joke once…" Merek took a long draw from a pipe of tobacco. "The West is beautiful— until the ocean."
Obika laughed heartily and slapped his thigh. "Chaaai!"
The officials sat in a small triangular room in Odegbami's mansion with red glass over the windows. Laid under them was a Kazakazani rug from a long massacred sect of Mchangans. It stunk of spilled liquor and burned drugs.
"Kāpura…" Obika sighed. "Weeeh, that place. Even the babies swimming in the'a motha's sto-machs are rebelling. There ah some cultures, Corbin, that would ratha throw spea's at progress than in-vent medicines and trains."
Merek nodded and sipped his dark Paradisean wine. "Places in Oros, too. The tribes in the mountains still think all life centers around their axes."
Obika chuckled and shook his head. "So then—?"
"Yes, so—
"Of course, I don't trust the Kāpurans."
"No," Obika added.
"Not for a moment!"
"No."
"But I am a son of the Dying Sun, and Mkubwa, in his wisdom—"
Obika rolled his eyes and slammed down his cup. "Not the integration prog—!"
"The integration programs." Merek frowned. "Then you know. The Kāpurans are demanding representation in the various Dying Sun parliaments and what have you, and the push for their inclusion has infected even the office of the Lord Chief Justice."
Obika took his folded fila hat off and picked at his curls. "Eyaah…I am sorry, Corbin, that must be…insuppor-table."
The Orosian nodded solemnly. "Judge Clayborne sent the letter himself— some arrogant little prick named Koa, assigned to be my new apprentice."
Obika spat a growl. His thick brows were twisted with so much demoniac anger that it seemed he might kill Merek just to get it out.
"Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly, he betrayed me." Obika winced. "Fell for the first of those horrible Cernunnian Witches that walked by, robbed the office blind, cheated on the books, and ran off with her."
Obika's teeth were grinding one another into cream. "With any luck, Kanaloa will drag them both to hell befo'a we cut his tentacles off!"
Merek laughed loudly. Genuinely.
"In any case, to make a long story short: When Koa did all this— Well, you can imagine that every transaction was stamped with the signature of—"
"Yo'as." Obika's red eyes went wide.
"Precisely."
"And that is why—"
Merek nodded. "A loyal– a good, effective— High Magistrate for nineteen years; my lord, it was a good life. But Clayborne hired a Kāpuran, and I was thrown into slavery halfway across the world for it."
Obika nodded slowly to the rhythm of his thoughts.
"I see…
"I am sorry. That judge has failed you— come. You cannot remain in the clothes of a slave. It is un-becoming of a son of the Dying Sun. Come." Obika put out the incense and started across his grand mansion.
Merek's steps were light and airy.
The pair breezed through a maze of cool, polished halls. Colorful orange-green patterns, like fruit in a tree, were painted onto the walls. A parade of yellow spikes and green circles followed them all through the home.
"You may sleep hea to-night, Corbin. Obviously, thea is room enough. In the nights an old slave cooks a truly remark-able dinna. To-morrow, I will see what else I can do."
Merek jogged up to stand beside him. The Orosian bowed his head, "Thank you, my lord. The courtesy of the Dying Sun is well-attested in my homeland. It is a grace to see it in person."
Obika smiled a great white smile and threw a hand on Merek's back. "I believe you will find Mchanga quite comfor-table, my friend."
As Odegbami extended the route into a winding tour of his grand earthen palace, Merek was halted by the glint of dark metal.
"My lord," he called, stopping Obika. "Is that…"
Merek rushed through the entrance, a long narrow meeting room with deep red walls and dim lighting. A large daguerreotype picture of Obika in green Superior's robes adorned a copper plate hung on the back wall. It was hand-colored by fine painters, and shone with gold leaf on the split sun.
He was younger, serious, and aspiring.
Above it, was bolted the black-metal ribcage of the Supreme Goddess of the Sun and Sky, Anyanwu, Daughter of Agni. Her breastbone jutted from her chest like the bow of a ship, sheen running down the knobbly metal and over the swooping curves of her ribs. In a passing hint to the woman she once was, Anyanwu's shoulder blades sprouted out like wings on either side.
"This is a cast of the skeleton in Arziki, isn't it?!" Merek wondered at the luxury.
Obika followed behind him and beamed proudly. "Of course. O&Z makes them with that lost wax trick fa all the highest ranking offi-cials. Your lord judge surely has one somewhere in all that ice."
Merek laughed. "He does, above his stand.
"My lord, may I…?"
Obika gestured towards the ribcage and Merek placed his hands on the cool metal. He ran his hand over the baseplate, Kāpuran letters spelling The Dying Sun.
"I'm almost embarrassed to admit," Merek chuckled. "But I've never quite understood the name; Dying.
"It's only— Anyanwu's been dead long enough, hasn't she? The name seems…anachronistic."
Obika laughed and pulled out a seat for himself at the long table. "Oh yes, the Sun's Bane killed Anyanwu howeva many lifetimes a-go, but how many gods— all this time lata— still live to tor-ment us?
"How many Blessed? Anyanwu was only the be-ginning. As long as we must still suffa these gods, ha spirit is not yet dead."
Merek took his seat across from the Overseer.
"Then our grandchildren will get to live under the Dead Sun? That name is even drearier, I must admit," he chuckled.
Obika would reciprocate no such levity; he was lost in the future. "No. Hopefully us. Any day now, I know it. The working grounds burn like fi'a, we ah feet from him now."
The Overseer's eyes were glued to the ribcage as he spoke, dimples forming from the strength of his smile.
His face dropped. "But then…"
Merek leaned in.
"That is my trouble," Obika started. "Mkubwa….I don't know. Sometimes I doubt him."
Merek's skin ran with goosebumps.
Obika continued, "For ex-ample— to-night, I'll have to process fifteen thousand schedules. Have you eva heard of such a thing? Schedules in a slave mill? In two days— Anotha fifteen.
"And these ah slave schedules, Corbin. It's all me-ticulous. The slaves work the hardest jobs first, then softa ones, and then, as if they needed a break from the'a break, they end with a rest day; every one of them."
Merek shook his head and crumpled his eyebrows. "Mkubwa has always been a gentle man. But rest and relaxation for killers and prisoners?" Merek spat a laugh.
Obika nodded. "But I believe in the man, of course."
"Of course."
"My fatha and grandfatha did befo'a me."
"Of course."
"But there is a lot like this."
"Mm."
"Do you know that slaves ah allowed to come to some of the offices and regista other lab-orers as 'family.' No questions, they just claim it and it is true. How can you check a thing like that? And then we ah given ordas to bias our schedules— a task that already takes days— to keep them togetha."
Obika sighed with big eyes, shaking his head like he was arguing with himself. All at once he burst up.
"Kiwano! They eat kiwano, Corbin! Pancakes and grilled meat! What? Is wata and bread out of fashion?" He slammed his fist onto the polished table and started pacing across the narrow room.
"Ugali! And— and— the Ba-rracks! Weeeh, the Ba-rracks! He wants— what? That I pay mo'a en-gineers to come and build the perfect home fa these slaves! Yes, Mkubwa trickles down a great army of co-mmands, but they find no money in my pocket to fight behind! No, heaven for-bid the Sun funds old Obika! Shege…does he think these mudstains come with an ar-chitectur-al book in the'a pockets?!"
Obika leaned against the table and rubbed his face.
"We must be oper-ating at half the efficiency we should be. Mkubwa's a good man, I'm not saying—"
"Of course."
"But we could have killed Mbombo by now."
Merek rose and stood beside him. He considered a hand on the back, but elected against it.
"Which reminds me— How are you to kill a god if your soldiers die in the mud?"
Obika's white eyes went wide and he turned to face Merek with a snarled mouth. "Ex-plain."
"Well only— I came to you today, truly, not out of desire to free myself. I understand the weight of what is happening here, the work. No, I came to warn you, and you specifically, because only a man of your power and wisdom is equipped to handle this.
"I'm sure Tunde informed you—" Merek got closer, spoke in a raspy whisper like he was stirring a grand epic.
"I approached him with three Scindreux blades, ripped from the hands of sons of the Dying Sun and borne by slaves.
"I saw it with my own eyes, organized murder, improvised weapons. They told stories of ancient empires long overthrown— and they killed." Merek was looking up through his eyebrows with a bowed head, like an advisor scared to tell the worst truths.
"Ehen? That is no great con-cern, my friend." Obika laughed loudly in Merek's face and began leading him back into the hall. "You must understand. The slaves, the trains, the rock, even the Superias, ah all se-condary.
"By any means nece-ssary— I will kill Mbombo. What you must see is that a reaction to this would warrant a counta reaction. Then that calls for anotha, then anotha and so on. And to be frank, Corbin, there ah more slaves than there ah of us. Even with those monstrous mudstain beasts to help us, it is…impractic-al.
"Tunde says it was just three men. That is no trouble. The slaves know betta than to take the swords. And, well…the'a is always mo'a green fabric."
Obika and his guest arrived at a dressing room. The slave girl was curled onto a futon by the hot window. She leapt up and fastened her face to the floor when she smelled Obika coming down the hall.
"In any case," Obika restarted, "with this all sorted out, I'm sure that I could re-turn you to yo'a position. I'll con-tact Judge Clayborne or Governa Merrywheather and file—"
Merek lurched forward and yanked Obika's shoulder harder than he meant to. "Milord! M…my lord." He adjusted Obika's sleeve and composed himself. "I'm not sure you're entirely understanding the scope here.
"This is not an isolated attack. This is not even rebellion. It's….This is worship.
"They call him The Saint of the Broken Rock."
Obika yanked off his fila and stepped very close to Merek. He drilled his black eyes into the Orosian's and huffed a long breath out over his mustache. "Ex-plain…"
"There is a man. Faraji Ngubane.
"He is my age, bearded, bald, tall. Masharki or from the jungles, probably; maybe the Wamg'ombe."
Obika's eyes shot to the ground like he'd remember his face in the seventy-thousand.
Merek went on, eyes trembling, mouth in a childish frown. "The people of the Barracks follow him, I saw it. He wins them by favors, he tried to win me. I saw it with my own eyes— a ritual."
Obika sucked in a breath.
"He had iconography like a church statue, cape flapping, a way he stands. When he talks, he sings stories of Blessed Waumba and Visums, and the voice that leaves his body is not of a man— it is the croaking, ancient, voice of a god."
Obika whipped his face towards the slave girl and barked in her language, "Do you know this man?!"
Elónga shook her head violently. "No! No!" She tucked her head into her shoulders.
"She is not in the Barracks," Merek said simply.
Obika let out a small gasp. "...a ri-tual?"
"My lord," Merek whispered, like dumping rocks into the sea. "Not only does the Saint of the Broken Rock—"
Obika's jaw clenched at the title.
"---disrespect all order of progress and authority of the empire with his stories, but he thinks himself a greater god than even the old powers.
"Indeed, after killing three of our good men— myself trapped by believers and unable to stop him— the Saint took their Scindreux blades and threw them from the balcony, as if they were mice in his pantry. Scindreux, my lord."
"And the people…?"
"You can check the room, my lord, more devotees than a temple for their god of gods. I tell you this as a fellow official, I tell you this with no joy— There is a god in your home, Obika.
"And far be it from a son of the Dying Sun to foster the birth of a new god under his nose."
Obika let out a staggered breath and brought his rough hands together. "Go. Be dressed and washed in half an hour, meet me outside my gates. We will kill this ba-stard Saint he'a and now— No, exe-cute him. The slaves will know the'a god is dead."
* * *
Officials from across Mchanga were often Obika's guests, usually the chief of the Wang'ombe or the Basondi fruit magnates, making deals for prisoners and troublemakers.
Or anyone.
For his guests, Obika had stored away a host of green aso oke agbada gowns and fila hats, in a variety of sizes, pressed and fresh.
Merek Corbin washed the red dust out of his flaxen curls and the sweat off his body. He cleaned his teeth and poured perfume onto the new fabrics. He threw down his Orosian garments.
The Magistrate pushed his curls into a green folded fila and enjoyed the breathability of a billowing agbada— a white Superior.
As he ambled happily about the dressing room, the Superior saw Elónga at the door, waiting to be used or requested. Merek didn't leave her eyes for a long time. He took two wooden cups from the side table, wiped them down, and poured one full of a cool wine, and another full of fresh water.
Merek placed these on the ground in front of Elónga, and whispered something very soft to the girl that she couldn't understand. He gave a sad smile and left.
One of Obika's great doors was propped open by the stop, bleeding blinding brightness into the dim hall.
As soon as color rushed back into his eyes, Merek saw it, up close, and wished he hadn't. Thick hippo's skin was stretched and strained across the obese, rolling, dark blue flesh of a Gargoyle. Perhaps once, the beast may have had legs, but like every Gargoyle they were now subsumed under a great belly of Amathunzi traditional tattooing, running up every contour of the fat body. The Gargoyle's clawed feet peeked out from under the rolls like a penguin chick.
The animal stunk like manure and horse sweat.
Merek did not move an inch from the doorway.
Obika smiled and raised a hand to call him over. He was wiping down his revolver, three pierced Stone Ravens dead at his feet. He threw them one at a time into the clicking maw of the Gargoyle's hamadryas skull. The hard sandy scales of the Stone Ravens cracked sharply in her teeth, and their black blood ran down the baboon skull's mane of wild gray hair.
That was the curiosity with Gargoyles— for as dead as their skulls looked, there was always some bit of hide that seemed to get torn off with the face. The lion Gargoyles had manes, the elephants, great ears.
Merek didn't move. He watched with a twisted face as the monster picked at her long canines with calloused human hands. The Gargoyle met Merek's eyes with her empty sockets and stopped eating. She turned away, and the Orosian was faced only with a great span of leathery bat wings.
A beast.
Merek stayed exactly where he was.
"Come now, man, what ah you doing? We must leave now, the slaves ah being ass-igned the'a jobs as we speak." The Overseer rushed over and clamped Merek's wrist in his hand, yanking him towards the monster like the Stone Ravens were not nearly filling enough.
"Th– Um… Then… Then we're to board…a buggy…or….?"
For all the success in the world, Merek could not piece together a single thought. His eyes were caged in the sockets of the Gargoyle.
Obika laughed loudly. "Carts ah fa slaves and rock. We have ele-vatas, too, and I do not take them, eitha. It is not the place fa an Overseer a-mong the mudstains and boys Mkubwa hi'ad. We will take Anuohia."
Merek nodded absently. A Raven's nostril was still visible, crushed onto the beast's molars.
"And this…Anuohia is wha—who…?"
Obika chuckled and patted Merek. "Her."
The Overseer threw out a finger.
Merek didn't have to look. The man sighed out of his nose and took off his fila. He kneaded the wrinkles on his forehead.
"Let's…" Merek breathed in. The Encampment's power stood in front of him. "...be on then."
Obika bent down and took off his shoe. He dug his hand in, and pulled out a simple round ring— a bright, chittering, glowing green.
He pushed the Scindreux onto his finger.
Every crystal spoke. Not this one. This one glared.
It had a deep, divine, purple crackling in the heart of it. Merek knew it well, though never personally.
Obika marched up to the Gargoyle, and got on his tiptoes. He waved his ringed hand as close to the great beast's face as he could reach, and a slow hissing like teapots started humming.
The creature whimpered and threw herself hard from the ring. Anuohia buried her dry old face in her hands, and covered where her ears ought to have been.
Obika snapped, and the woman screamed.
Anuohia trembled and faced the men, bending low and offering her fat arms in a hook. Obika sat in the crook of her elbow, and clutched Anuohia's bicep. Merek copied.
The magistrate sat, and he could feel the Gargoyle shake, her pulse racing in her wrist. She was sweating. Merek looked up at Anuohia's horrific face, and her eyes met his. He placed his hand on her wrist, and patted.
Anuohia flipped her forearm up against her bicep and pinched the men roughly against herself. The tropical sound of her wings fit poorly the horror of their make.
"I apologize for the…" Obika chuckled, "'art'. The Amathunzi were stubb-orn in creating the beasts. No way to remove it except fa skinning.
"We've found that makes them un-productive, so…
"Anuohia!" Obika slammed his Scindreux ring hard onto the woman's skull, its purple divinity burning through every ivory bend.
She screamed, and leapt into the sky.
Sheeenk! and the insectoid buzz of Anuohia's wings rushed in through the Barracks windows. Sheeenk! and she only screeched like that when Obika made her. Sheeenk! and she was old, scared, and tired. Sheenk! and work was starting.
Faraji threw his gaze down the winding paths of the Barracks and saw Samir and his son, the Kaskazani's panicked eyes already meeting his.
The bearded Mchangan rushed down the steps to his family.
Bhekizitha turned and rushed after him.
The family almost slammed against the dense forest of dark bodies crowding near the main Barracks exit. Half of them were fighting to rush back in, and the other half were pushing those out so they wouldn't get caught up in the reprimand.
A familiar scene. A great Gargoyle was at their door.
Not even a thing like flaying could make the slaves walk past the Gargoyle and board the carriages. There'd be no work until she was gone.
Faraji and Samir stretched their necks and saw Anuohia. Samir lowered his eyes. The Sahrawiyum do not look gods in the face.
"Do you think it's because…?" Fortus whispered.
Bhek shook his head. "I've killed more in a matter of seconds than we did last night. Here I am. They don't care, boy."
Faraji ground his teeth.
"Mudstains!" Obika's voice rode the dry air.
Anuohia turned her back and revealed the men in her arms.
"I have no ca'a fa most of you. I desi'a only one:
"Yo'a pi-tiful excuse for a god, covered in feces and dust—
"Bring me the Saint of the Broken Rock…"
The crowd murmured and looked for who to betray. It was too hot, and the Gargoyle too close, for goodness.
Obika's eyes burned white. "Now— we will not waste the daylight!"
Obika's words ripped Faraji's throat through his body. The Easterner coughed and grabbed his stomach. His eyes were wide and darting.
Samir ran his hands in circles across Faraji's back. The man had heavy trouble with stress since the Kazkazani had met him. "They can't mean—"
"Faraji Ngubane!"
The words had reached Fortus' mind, but truly he did not hear them. He did not hear the slaves gasp, nor Bhek start yanking his son towards the Barracks, and the argument that broke out as Faraji planted his feet.
Fortus' eyes ran across the tired hills of Bhek's scowl, and the Tsi'itibe looked scared like a young girl, lip whimpering and eyes begging. His gaze ran down his skinny old arm, yanking his strong son, and up the dark forearms that resisted.
Faraji's eyes were filled with gloss, and all he could do was shake his head at his old father, trying with all his weak strength to force his son to think of himself. Time had made Faraji strong enough to disobey.
Fortus' freezing blood burned a hellish heat, and his heart drummed in his ears. Still not a single word, not a scream, not even the crunching of pebbles under his feet made a sound.
His hands buzzed like Anuohia's wings and all the air in the world was smokey and dry and never enough.
It was quiet. Everything. All of it was gone.
Fortus hadn't even seen it happen, but his hands were cupping his father's face.
Faraji forgot Bhek entirely, and his tired eyes landed on his good son. All together his face crushed into a sob and he yanked the boy as hard as he could into his chest. He gripped the back of his head and his waist, and squeezed the boy tight as he cried into his dirty hair.
Panic bled through the whole crowd. There wasn't a slave in the seventy-thousand who hadn't thanked Faraji.
A Sahrawi woman looked over her shoulder at the bearded man with his own son crushed between his arms. Years ago, he'd finally been given a new tunic after years, and as soon as it came into his hands he gave it to her to wrap her hair. The headwrap was most important to the Sahrawiyun, and the Husbands were great tormenters.
The woman started crying. She shuffled until she was almost laying atop him, and tried with all she could give to stop the deep sockets of Anuohia from ripping him from his family.
Faraji looked up at her. Roxana. He remembered all their names, no matter how foreign.
Obika growled. Seconds were passing, seconds too many. He rushed to the crowd and yanked out a boy from the Grassland Peoples by his hair. He squeaked out a scream in that young way, and Obika jolted his hand, throwing him to his knees. The Overseer whipped his Scindreux around and held it between his eyes.
"Ngubane. What a po'a god a-bandons his people. You will show yo'aself now, or I will kill every person on this platform, starting with this little mudstain." Obika pushed the boy into the ground and slammed a foot onto his little skull.
"This is no threat. This is no ex-aggeration. We can kill, and rape, and burn fa new slaves."
Sweat washed Merek's body, and his legs started trembling.
Before Obika had even finished, Samir threw up his hand, jumping to be sure he'd be seen over the crowd.
"I am—"
Faraji ripped his hand back down like he'd kill him.
"Kaka, your wife is upstairs with a seven year old girl!" he barked.
The men locked eyes for a long moment.
"You will not die, today, Fara," Samir whispered.
"You—"
"Haya!" Bhekizitha croaked. He shoved past the crowd faster than Faraji could catch him. "I cannot see you from behind all my friends, but if you're anything like how you sound, you should be no problem for the Saint of the Broken Rock!"
Old Man Bhek laughed wildly as he hobbled towards Obika.
The Overseer smiled and kicked the slave boy away.
"Ah. Eaga to die, ah you, Faraji?"
Bhek spat a laugh as he broke through the final few bodies. "Tired. It is my rest day."
The old man was smiling, truly.
Just as he was thinking of some great twisted insult, altogether Bhek forgot his own language. He looked up past his hunch towards the great beast that'd kill him, a proper hunter's death, and saw the men— two white Superiors.
The foreign Orosian magistrate Merek Albus Corbin of Hämmhurst was peacocking in Magharibi robes in the badlands of Kusini.
Bhekizitha's head turned on its axis, bit by bit until he was listening to the ground.
"You…" he gurgled. The old man's wild eyes twitched and his hands balled. "I will kill you," he promised.
Merek swallowed and kept his gaze down.
Obika's smile faded. "Merek. You said he was your age, and taller."
Bhekizitha's gummy jaw hung open, and his good eye drilled into Merek. "You…" he repeated. The old hunter was shaking violently. He opened and clenched his fingers again and again, and no force in the world could rip his eye from Merek.
"You…"
The Orosian felt the old man bore through his hair and into his skull. Though he watched the ground, he could feel every web of his dark iris. He said nothing.
"No, mbwa wewe. I am Faraji Ngubane! I am Tsi'itibe, and with the ferocity of my people—-"
"Merek!" Obika growled.
The Orosian lifted his eyes. They were red. He stared at Bhekizitha and frowned. "No…That's not…Faraji."
Bhek's heart erupted. "No! No! No, I am! I am! See for yourself, the bodies were thrown into the waste pits! I shredded that boy! I did it! I am the Saint of the—"
Merek scanned the old man. He remembered the sound of a skull breaking in his bare hands. Now those same hands lusted to do worse to him.
Then his eyes wandered past the desperate old father, and towards the crowd, packed tightly in one place. The slaves nestled their Saint of the Broken Rock, and anyone who tried to yank him out found themselves stomped into the rock. A couple thousand people who might rally behind Faraji's call for vengeance.
He looked back at Bhekizitha, old and alone. He did the grand calculus in his mind.
"No. He isn't. He's actually Faraji's—"
Bhek gasped and whipped his face towards Merek's. His eyes were almost begging through all their fire.
"Um," the Orosian faltered. "I don't…I don't know who that is. He must be senile.
"He's no trouble to us, send him away."
The old Tsi'itibe hadn't even heard. Bhek's eyes were nailed to Merek. He promised with his pupils. He swore, even against the gods themselves, he promised.
He scampered off into the crowd. His time was not yet.
Obika's nostrils flared with heat like a bull. He slammed his Scindreux blade into the rock, and plumes of sand shot up, ringing dancing through the earth. Again. Again. Again.
He screamed and spit flew from his lips. "Insolence!" he roared.
Obika whipped his Scindreux blade and pointed it like a rifle towards the crowd. The slaves shrilled and the crowd sank back towards the Barracks like the tide. The Overseer whipped the blade towards the other side, and the same.
Obika scoffed. A smile cracked through the hell of his face.
He pointed his blade to a whimpering bunch of slaves and raised his other hand, adorned with the smooth Scindreux ring, purple crackling through its body. He brought the ring close to the blade and the people screamed. Then ever so gently he tapped the round ring onto the jagged face of the Scindreux sword.
All at once power like thunder boomed through the crater, and winds of sheer energy smacked into his victims. For half a second, nothing happened. Then thirteen people dropped to the ground and started writhing like snakes, clawing at their hair and ripping it in handfuls.
Then the first slammed his mouth into his wrist and started tearing up veins like an animal. He bit again and again, until he was gnawing on bone.
Then the next, and she whipped her ankle up to her face and tore out her achilles tendon. Then the next, and the next, until all thirteen had shredded themselves to death.
The crowd erupted.
"No!" Faraji screamed, a face of tears and snot. He tore himself away from his son and ran towards Obika. "Kaka, protect Fortus!" he called back. He was sobbing.
"Stop! Stop, please! I am Faraji Ngubane, I am the Saint of the Broken rock!"
"Faraji!" Samir screamed after him. Nothing.
Faraji shoved through the crowd and threw himself in front of Obika. Samir gripped Fortus tightly and prayed. The boy could feel tears on his hair.
But nothing else. No, Fortus was sure he was dying. He was dead. He was dying. He knew it more than anything, it was all that was. He was dying.
Obika smiled with every one of his white teeth. There he was. Merek's age, bearded, bald. Masharki or from the jungles, probably; maybe the Wang'ombe.
"Faraji," he jeered.
The man ignored him completely. His face twisted into a snarl. "Merek!" he barked.
Faraji pushed past Obika. The Overseer's eyes went wide. "Merek! Merek, look at me!" He did not. "Merek!"
"...I'm…I apologize…" the fat man mumbled.
Faraji ran up and ripped Merek's head up by his hair so he could see his lying eyes. The Easterner cracked his fist across his face. Blood painted Merek's beard.
"What is wrong with you?!" Spit flew onto the fat man's face and Faraji's bark matched Anuohia's. "Why would you do this to us, why would you do this to me?! What is wrong—"
Obika yanked Faraji and threw him onto the ground. He whipped his Scindreux blade up against Faraji's face and a sliver of bearded cheek plopped onto the ground.
"Faraji!" Obika repeated, lava seething under his skin.
The Easterner would not look at him, he watched Merek like he was from another world. Faraji's head shook from side to side without his knowing, and he just stared.
Obika yanked the slaves' hands together and clamped iron manacles over his wrists. He glared up at Faraji as secured them. His eyes begged for the same, but the Easterner only watched Merek.
The chains of the shackles ran towards the Gargoyle, and with a snap and a wail Obika brought Anuohia's head down. A great thick shackle was forged for her kind. The Overseer clamped it around her neck and pinched her fat as he did. She bled a little.
Obika yanked her skull close and whispered, running his ring down her bone as he did. Then he stepped away and she started.
Anuohia pulled herself forward by her human hands and dragged her thick belly towards Faraji, a low grumbling.
Though his temples beat, the proud man stared her down the way he'd seen his father do. He raised his chin, looked down at her, and waited. When she came close enough, the athlete jolted his arms hard and whipped the heavy chains up with mythic violence. They crashed against Anuohia's bony face and a great crack shattered up her cheek and through her browbone. Blood. Dark, purple, Blessed blood gushed out of her face like rivers.
The whole crowd sucked in a sharp breath and held it close to their hearts.
Anuohia screamed and scampered back towards Merek, yanking Faraji to the ground by his chains. The man got up.
Then he turned, and faced Obika. He met his black eyes.
Faraji clenched his jaw and snarled.
Obika roared and rushed the man, grabbing his hands and lifting them high. In one arc he swung his Scindruex up from his waist and through three of Faraji's fingers.
Not a drop of blood spilled, chartreuse burns across the nubs of his hand. Obika snatched up the three dark fingers, and tossed them high into the air. Anuohia leapt and swallowed them whole.
Faraji didn't turn to look. He'd be no audience. His eyes were glossed and his pained face melted by a sweet warm smile. He stared at the horrified crowd. He ran his eyes to meet each and every one. None looked back at him coldly.
Forty-one years. He really had met so, so many. They'd eaten together, lent a hand, made a joke. They traded smiles with one man in their whole world.
Some stubborn tears spilled from his eyes. Ndugu Zangu. He smiled with every one of his yellowed teeth. He had made so many friends. Names. Learned so many gorgeous names.
He winked at the crowd and someone chuckled.
Obika raged like a dog. He raised up Faraji's mutilated hand.
"Is this the hand that will point you to freedom?!" he barked.
The Overseer didn't even use his Scindreux, he kneed Faraji in the stomach and threw him to the ground. Obika yanked up that same hand and sliced it off the tired man's body.
He caught the dark flesh as it fell and threw it to the crowd.
"Here!" he spat.
It plopped onto the ground and the crowd parted around it, down all the way to the Barracks, down to Fortus and Samir.
"Let it guide you!"
The crowd murmured and women cried.
Baba? Fortus thought. He thought nothing more. His mouth could not form the words. Baba?
The people kept holding that breath close to their thumping hearts. Stone Ravens started circling.
Faraji stumbled to his feet. His bones were tired, and all he could feel was the stump of his arm. He wanted to fold over and sleep. But the Encampment was watching.
The man straightened out, breathed in one last great breath until it filled his ribs, and stood chest to chest against Obika. He looked down onto the man.
Obika looked up, and his eyes faltered. Faraji clenched his jaw.
In the quiet hum of the heaving crowd and Raven caws, some strange mix of dread and pride possessed the slaves.
A voice cracked out and shattered the stale sky. A mother wailed, "Faraji, Asiyekufa!"
It rang through the ears of every slave like the voice of old mountains. A chill drew a hiccup from the crowd, and all together life thundered into the cold bones that stared but never saw, and fire beat in their blood.
"Faraji!" Someone screamed.
"Asiyekufa!" rang from seven others. Then seven more.
The slaves' legs stretched like they used to. They licked the chap off their lips. Names; they remembered. So many gorgeous names.
Then what must've been a hundred. "Faraji! Asiyekufa!"
They were almost singing it.
Then what must've been a thousand. "Faraji Asiyekufa!"
Until the whole crater wailed for their saint.
Faraji's eyes were blind with tears, and he laughed. He threw his arms up and the thousands cheered louder than the train whistles, they shook the home of Mbombo itself.
Magic stirred in Faraji, then, greater than any Blessing.
He looked down at the harbinger of death and chuckled. He looked him right in the eyes as he laughed.
They chanted, over and over.
Fortus watched his poor father waiting to die.
And they wouldn't shut up. The chanting screamed. It shook his skull and stole his color. It was screaming.
Screaming.
Fortus crushed his ears in his palms and sobbed.
Faraji lifted his gaze from the smattering of a man beneath him. He looked towards kind Anyanwu's warm sun and breathed. He sighed out a hum and cooed his tired soul with a song his sick mother had taught him. It was an old, old song.
Asiyekufa! Asiyekufa! Asiyekufa!
Obika looked around at the army that surrounded him with his jaw hung open. Merek shuffled forward.
"Take care not to birth a martyr…my lord."
Obika looked at the Saint of the Broken Rock and snarled.
He brought Faraji's head down so the god could hear his plea.
"Ngubane. It must be obvious to you what this is. I will let you live, then. All you need do is bow."
Faraji smirked. He swirled the saliva in his mouth until he had enough to spit.
But Fortus.
Faraji looked for one last time at his people and saw his sweet son, covering his ears and sobbing.
Fortus was good.
The Saint's grin faltered, and he frowned. He looked at Obika, and his eyes trembled.
Faraji dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
The chanting died in scattered realizations.
And in the crowd-held breath, Garran saw the hanging of Osric Talbot. His warm older brother who put meat on his plate, flailing like a funny fish on that rope.
"Wait—"
Seuu-Shish!
And Faraji Ngubane's skull hit the ground.
His body followed.
Fortus Ngubane had never done a brave thing in his life.
But this was his father.
"Baba!" the boy wailed, and he elbowed Samir hard in the stomach, to rush out of his grip and into death.
Obika laughed wildly.
"Baba?! Is that what he told you?!"
The Overseer's insult was no news.
Every slave's real father was a Husband.
Still it burned him, and the boy rushed in snotty tears.
"Anuohia," Obika sighed, and snapped his fingers.
"Fortus!" Samir yelled, running after the boy.
Obika whipped up his revolver and shot the Kazkazani straight through. Samir slammed onto the ground.
The Gargoyle lurched forward, and in her deep sockets brewed a wicked and malignant crimson, beaming forth and washing the boy. The famed Igazi Lomoya of the Amathunzi's monsters.
Fortus' whole world was swallowed in thick clouds of velvet smoke. He felt burning fire cut into his skin and roll violently beneath it, bubbling in torturous ripples and scorching every muscle in his thin body.
It went on and on, through his screams, until every bone in his body was grinded and rebuilt, and never an actual rip in his true flesh. He felt nothing, thought nothing, but pain. Pain.
And then Fortus' heart stopped.
The boy fell to the ground.
Obika sauntered forth and slammed his boot through the boy's face. Again. Again.