A campfire is Nature’s musical, the flames dance out scenes, one flame gave a deep bow to another as it jumped, changed colour, and grew taller. The other flamed circled around them, waving back and forth, their harsh language providing unrhythmic acoustic accompaniment. The boy and the night watched but the fire did not fear, because unlike the abyss, fire does not stare back.
“Brooding doesn’t really suit you, you know?” a cheerful female voice announced, a male voice answered in laughter
“I think he’s gong for the tall, dark, handsome stranger aesthetic.”
“One out of four isn’t really impressive.” the female voice reproved. There was laughter again
“Just because you’re a dwarf doesn’t make me tall, Fatima.” the fire-watcher smirked.
“I meant strange, you definitely are strange.”
“Stranger, strangeR”
“Yeah, you’re stranger than either me or Theo.”
Their third companion fell over laughing, his voice barely bothered the twittering birds and insects.
“”Anyone of you boys interested in a game?” Fatima offered, displaying a black pouch.
“Sure!” Theo volunteered
They both glanced at their last companion who was still staring into the fire.
“I’m so hungry right now I’d eat the nuts.” he declined
“I’d have to cut through your stomach to get them.” Fatima grinned “You want to throw first?” she asked Theo
“Nah, you throw. I’ll choose the topic, Iyi can verify for us instead of killing his eyes.”
“Cool” Blue light flashed in Fatima’s eyes, eight symbols seeming to pulse in her pupils, black chain crawled up her face, covering the four horizontal marks that adorned her cheeks, they seemed less chains and more ink, or shadow, sometimes lightning flickered through, little currents of hot-white tracing some arcane path.
As she emptied the pouch with a flap, sixteen palm nuts rolled out and Theo called out “Conflict.” The palm nuts arranged themselves into two lines with uncanny speed, like an invisible thread strung through them had been pulled taut.
Fatima smiled. “Conflict, from the 7th saying of 401 Mouths. There were once two villages that were close allies, they held the same Market Days and intermarried often. Eshu heard of this and decided to pay them a visit. One day, on the path dividing both villages, a strange man turned up with a hat. He strolled down the path seven times, seeming to appear out of nowhere and ignoring their greetings. Three days he did this, and on the fourth day, the Market Day, he showed up without his hat. Revealing himself, he promised to make the yams of whoever told him the correct colour of his hat the biggest ever seen. The villagers from the village on the left claimed it was red, those on the right laughed and said it was black. Back and forth they disagreed, and as the disagreement went on, the participants got angrier until suddenly they were fighting and tearing at each other. After this went on for a while, Eshu ordered them to stop and brought out his hat, one side was painted red, the other black. Laughing at the bleeding and panting villagers, he threw the hat on the ground and disappeared.”
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They both glanced at Iyi who shrugged “Everybody knows that one. It’s obviously valid.”
Pale hands cupping the palm-nuts, Theo threw again. The palm-nuts seemed to chase each other until they stopped suddenly and snapped into two straight lines, all the heads pointing upwards.
“The Mother of Death, as told by the Second Mouth.” The pale pink lips of the boy twisted into an unnatural grin, when he spoke, it was not his voice that quieted the forest around them. This voice was deeper, richer and clearly accented in a way that the European had not managed to pick up even after years of naturalisation.
“Seven forests and seven streams I walked,
For seven days and seven nights.
I came upon an old woman in the bush,
She offered me cocoyam on her left.
I refused,
She offered me wateryam from her right,
I refused.
She pressed an oily finger to my cheek in reproof.
At home my mother was furious,
Where have you been?
From whom have you eaten?
I told her I was starving, my stomach was empty.
She called me a liar and threatened to beat me.
One does not hit a priest, dear mother,
One does not hit the Seer of Ways.
I told her the truth.
She pushed and she pulled,
She hit with a broom.
What will happen if I hit you?
She asked.
Curses will fall on the earth
And drown it.
Bad luck will sprout up like grass.
My mother didn’t listen.
She beat and she beat.
When the trees of the forest heard it
They ganged up and beat her.
The flogged her with branches.
When Death heard of this,
He flew into a rage.
Death was my brother,
The brother of Chameleon.
Death eats all men,
Chameleon is at home
In a stranger’s house.
When Death heard of this,
He flew into a rage.
He cut down the trees,
He burned through the forest.
The trees were angry,
They wanted revenge.
They said “What makes Death a King?
What makes him hard to kill?”
Death’s wife heard of the bounty,
She cared not for him.
Death’s wife heard of the bounty
And asked them for it.
“Death must not eat rats,
Death must not eat fish,
Death must not eat ducks.”
The trees fed him eggs,
They fed him the eggs of duck.
Death fell on the ground,
He shook like a rattlesnake,
He foamed at the mouth,
Death vomited his strength.
Ahhh! Beware of women,
Women are evil,
Women breed conflict.”
The blue light faded, the halo seeming to dim away into nothingness, there was a small pause in which nothing could be heard, like the world held it’s breath in doubt or confusion. THen the animals began chirping again, the birds called to each other.
“That was nonsense.” Fatima turned to Iyi
“It was a real trance.” Iyi shrugged.
“Bullshit.” she protested.
“He was chanelling an Icon,” he reassured, when she seemed about to disagree again he cut her off “Forget it, it’s just a game, we need t sleep if we want to make good time tomorrow. We’ll have to wake up at Dawn.”
Frowning, she doused the fire and one by one the three travellers lay down to sleep.