a long story,” Magtone said. “Language is never a barrier to me. Suffice to say I’ve been the victim of a few wizards myself. One in particular.” His eyes stared at the stars above the treetops, as if looking into the past.
“Did a wizard’s spell send you into exile here?” asked Shango. “Is that why you are so far from home?”
Magtone took back his flask and drank deep. He wiped his lip with the back of a lean hand and his magical eyes flared against the firelight.
“Not exactly,” Magtone said. “I’m looking for the great and ancient city known as Odaza, where gods walk among men. Do you know it?”
Shango nodded. “Only from legends. Do you seek a legend?” He took another drink from the bottle, which calmed his growling stomach. “Only madmen seek legends as if they were realities.”
“Ah, you may call me mad if you wish,” Magtone said. “But at least I have a goal. How many madmen can say that?”
Shango drank a last sip of wine and turned the bottle upside down to show his guest that it was all gone. “I don’t know,” he said. “You are the first madman I’ve ever met.”
Magtone laughed. “I’m a poet actually,” he said. “Or at least I was…”
Shango grinned and was about to ask for a poem. A sound from the darkness stopped him. He put a finger to his lips, and Magtone nodded at his request for silence. Something dark and heavy moved among the trees, sniffing at the air, coming toward the dead men in their pools of cooling blood.
A long arm, apish and purple with a black claw on every finger, reached from the shadows and grabbed a swordsman’s corpse by the hair. It pulled the body into the dark, where the sound of gnashing teeth and ripping flesh drowned out the crackle of the campfire.
“It’s only a forest demon,” Shango whispered. “The bodies will appease its bloodlust as well as any sacrifice. Stay near to the flame and we have nothing to fear.”
Shango and Magtone watched the arm slink back again, then again, as each corpse was devoured in turn by the skulking beast. Afterwards it slipped off into the moonlight and disappeared. Only pools of red mud and a few bones remained of the cadavers.
“This forest is quite a nasty place,” Magtone said. “Yet I hear there are two great settlements at either end of this path. I’ve been lost in the wilderness for so long that I crave civilization. I know your language as I know all languages, but I do not know your customs. I thought perhaps to travel in your company awhile.”
Shango shook his head. “You do not want to travel with me,” he said. “There will be only blood and death where I am going.”
“You told the masked ones you seek to kill a man.”
“Yes,” Shango said. “And I can accept no man’s help in this endeavor.”
“So you will not turn back, you will not accept aid, and you wish no company?”
“You begin to understand me,” Shango said. “Perhaps you truly are a poet.”
“And perhaps you truly are a killer,” Magtone said. “Is this the sum of your ambition?”
Shango turned away from his campfire guest. He did not want to lose his temper and break the bonds of hospitality. He spoke without looking at Magtone.
“The man I seek is named Shira Zo, Master Swordsman of the House of Zo. He leads the masked ones who serve Shangzara, and by their ruthless skill the wizard rules this province. Six times has war come to our lands during my lifetime, six times have the soldiers of Huan-gao and Huan-zuo matched blades in the sorrowfields, and six times sixty men have died. The last of these wars nearly destroyed Huan-gao, which lives now under the subjugation of Sangzara and the Zo swordsmen.”
“I see,” said Magtone. “You’ve come to slay the wizard and his champion for the good of your people. You are a hero, Shango of Huan-gao.”
“No,” Shango said. “That is not why I march toward death.”
“Well, if you’re not doing it for your people, then you must be doing it for yourself.”
“You are unusually perceptive, Poet.”
“You wear simple robes, affect a martial demeanor,” Magtone examined Shango with shimmering eyes. “You travel in humble style, with no need of comfort. You wear no jewels or golden rings. It is not treasure you seek…so it must be revenge.”
Shango said nothing.
“If you wish to travel with me, we leave at dawn’s light,” he said. “Get some sleep.” He rolled into the grass and rested his head on a mossy root, his back toward Magtone. The wine had made him terribly sleepy. He clutched the sheathed sword to his breast like a lover and closed his eyes. He could not speak to the stranger of what he had lost. Not here in the Forest of Heavenly Streams, where spirits often listened to mens’ conversations and took the forms of dead loved ones.
Magtone curled up with his back to Shango, wrapping the carpet about himself like a blanket. “I’m told there is a fine library in Huan-zuo,” he said.
“There was one in Huan-gao as well,” Shango said. “But not anymore.”
There had been so many wonderful things in Huan-gao.
So few of them were left now.
Despite his request to travel with Shango, the stranger was nowhere to be found when dawn broke. Shango stamped out the remains of his campfire and followed the forest trail toward Huan-zuo. Singing birds filled the trees, and the wind brought cherry blossoms like tiny fairies dancing through sunbeams.
Shango walked the better part of the morning until he topped a rise and saw the blue stone towers of Huan-zuo Citadel rising beyond the treetops. The ancient fortress crowned a steep hill rising above the town proper, which sat walled and gated, surrounded by miles of working farmlands. Shango walked a few more hours until the forest thinned out, and he followed the river that flowed through the center of town. Huan-zuo looked much as he remembered from previous visits, a collection of peaked roofs and painted temples gathered at the foot of Sangzara’s high stronghold. River boats with blue and yellow sails glided east or west, moving produce and livestock to and from the city’s crowded wharves.
Shango drank from a public well after he left the forest shadows. He walked in the sun like a man unworried and in no pressing haste. He did not stop to speak with any man or woman, although peasants dropped their baskets as he approached and fled to the side of the road. In the huts of field workers women drove their children inside as he came down the river road, staring out their windows with wide eyes. The men stood their ground with spade and pitchfork, as if they would stand a chance against a swordsman of Shango’s experience. He ignored them and entered the city gate, which stood open to evening traffic.
The guards eyed him warily and waved him through, moving aside their long spears.
“Shango of Huan-gao!” One of the spearmen called to him as he passed. “Master Zo awaits you in the Pit of Vipers. Seek him directly and none else shall contest you. That honor is claimed by the master.”
Shango gave a slight bow and resumed his walking. The townsfolk wore brighter clothing, but they were just as frightened as the country folk. They hid behind the doors of shops and hovels, children clinging to their knees and shoulders. Guards on every corner wore the demon-masks of Shangzara’s service, yet they made no move to stop Shango as he went deeper into the city. As the sun fell behind the nearby hill, the governor’s fortress became a mountain of darkness, a shadow that lay over the entire city. Perhaps the people who lived here no longer felt that shadow because they had grown used to its iron weight.
Shango avoided the blinking eyes of children as he passed by.
The Pit of Vipers was a staging ground for gladiatorial events and ritual combat. Such violent delights were popular in Huan-zuo as they never were in Huan-gao. Many things were allowed here