While the Gods Slumber

Zhura and Amina passed through Boma in the deep dark that came after the forest swallowed the western sun. They walked through the market area of the sleeping village, stepping over rotting fruit and offal. Zhura carried her staff and a burning brand, passing by quiet grass huts and a few villagers with torches.

They crossed a line of worn stones in the shallowest point of the river. When the rains came, the stones would be submerged, and the Little Mongoose would flood the eastern edge of Boma. Then the river could only be crossed by boat.

Amina carried her own brand, but she hadn't lit it. "I'll stay behind, at the edge of your light," she said, once they reached the east bank. "If you need me, I'll be there."

Zhura nodded and set off upstream, ducking under hanging branches and picking her way over thick buttress roots. The sultry air buzzed with high-pitched whirs and drones of insects. She glanced back occasionally, but couldn't see or hear Amina beyond the torch glare. Few were sneakier than Aminazakwa Kong.

Every few minutes, Zhura passed an ancestor stone that had been driven into the reddish, clay-like soil. The stones stood taller than she was, and their rough surfaces were etched with pictographs that warded away demons. The stones were carefully maintained and ringed the village. Once she was beyond them, Zhura's heart pounded that much faster.

Finally, she heard the rush of the falls. She slowed, carefully climbing the rise until she saw a thatched dome ahead. A hanging cloth covered its entryway.

Zhura sensed that she was being watched, but she knew Amina was close. She scanned the forest surrounding the hut. Clay obelisks - like the ancestor stones but much smaller - stood planted in the ground, scattered in the bushes.

She crouched, examining one. It was shaped like a long, thick, and lifelike phallus, and covered with symbols. Zhura spotted three more within her torchlight.

The blanket door to the hut swung aside, and Ntoza's head poked out. The inside was brightly lit.

"Zhura. Did you come alone?"

"Yes," Zhura lied.

"Then come," said Ntoza.

Zhura left the clay obelisk and approached the hut. She thrust her torch into the ground, and stooped to enter the doorway.

The floor inside was lined with soft animal pelts and raffia rugs, apart from the center, where a small firepit burned. The smoke wafted through a little hole in the roof. Baskets and jugs lined the wall.

Ntoza was barefoot. Her garb revealed even more than the day before. Her yellow skirt - if it could be called that - was simply two panels that hung in front and behind her, baring both sculpted legs. The brown halter didn't even hide Ntoza's breasts completely. The nubs of her nipples visibly poked through the cloth.

Zhura swallowed. She didn't come here to be seduced again.

"How are you safe here?" she asked. "Any sort of beast or demon could attack you while you slept."

"You've come all this way," Ntoza said, reclining on the floor near the fire. "Sit."

"I came for answers," Zhura said.

"And you will have them."

Zhura sighed. She slipped off her sandals, but kept her staff near, sitting down in front of Ntoza. Her gaze seemed drawn to the juncture of the woman's open thighs, but she didn't allow herself to look.

Ntoza smiled. "You saw the summoning stones outside. They each summon and bind a minor demon that watches this place. Even a few such beings are sufficient to frighten off wild beasts. I banished all but one because I expected you."

Zhura shifted uncomfortably. Demons. Instinctively, she glanced down at the cowrie charm at her wrist. Amina was out there with them.

"Is something wrong?" Ntoza asked.

Zhura scowled. "You consort with demons?"

Ntoza grinned again. "Yes. That trinket you wear might protect you from the weaker sorts of demons. But these are also under my control. You have nothing to fear."

"Tell me who I am."

Ntoza nodded. She stretched her legs out and crossed them. Her gold toe ring seemed to wink in the firelight.

"I knew of your mother, but I was only a girl when she died. I know her kin. Your kin." Ntoza said. "They have been searching for you since you were an infant."

"Where are they?"

"In Morore. That is my home too. I came to Boma because of a rumor that you could be found here."

Zhura's eyes narrowed. "Why didn't they come themselves?"

"I am a trader," Ntoza shrugged. "I speak the Sung language."

Zhura looked to the jugs against the wall. She had noticed the smell before, but not recognized it. "The beer. You brought it with you."

Ntoze only smiled.

"Did you come here to take me back to my kin?"

Ntoza's eyes twinkled. "Only if you choose."

Zhura stared at the woman, waiting for her to say more. She willed herself to relax.

"Tell me about my mother," she said.

Ntoza shook her head. "That is not my place. It is for your kin to tell you of her."

"Did you know my father?"

"No." Ntoza's gaze dropped to the staff that lay at Zhura's side. "How did you feel, after we met yesterday?"

"I... I felt alive. Powerful."

"Yes."

"What happened to me?"

Ntoza sat up. She swiveled to sit on her knees. "Shall I show you?"

Zhura tensed. "Just... tell me."

Ntoza shook her head. "It is in your blood, Zhura," she crept forward on hands and knees, coming close enough that Zhura could smell her scent - the musk of her arousal, coupled with that strange, sharp spice. "You have to feel it to understand."

The older woman gently took Zhura's trembling hand and brought it to her lips. She kissed the fingers and then began to softly suck on each one.

Zhura tried to quell her growing desire, tried not to look into Ntoza's eyes as she suckled each finger with loving care. She started as she heard a thrashing of brush outside.

"What was that?"

"Just an animal."

"The demon. Will it kill animals?"

"It is not in demons' nature to wantonly kill." Ntoza held Zhura's glistening fingers to her skin, wielding them like a brush, painting a moist line down her throat, between her breasts, between her legs. She shifted the brief skirt aside, revealing a scrap of a loincloth that barely covered her plump slit.

"Villagers are ignorant," the older woman said. "They fear what they do not understand. That is why you must wear the blue mask. That is why they fear demons."

Ntoza traced her fingers lightly along the edge of blue dye around Zhura's eyes. "My people respect power." Ntoza's fingers fell to Zhura's chin, and she raised it. "We respect beauty." The older woman drew her close for a kiss.

They stretched out on the plush floor together, their tongues dancing and intertwining. The older woman tasted of a piquant blend of honey and salt.

Zhura whimpered with need. On her own, she dipped her hand into Ntoza's loincloth, feeling the liquid warmth that awaited her there.

Zhura told herself she hadn't come here for this. She just wanted to talk. But Ntoza was so intoxicating - as heady as the beer she traded. What was the harm?

She rolled atop the older woman and traced kisses down her collarbone, the globes of her inner breasts, her belly and navel. Ntoza's skin was as taut as Zhura would have expected of a younger girl. Giving in to her hunger, Zhura grasped the sides of Ntoza's trifle of a loincloth. She tugged it down her legs and off.

Zhura admired the puffy, trimmed lips of Ntoza's cunt, and the dew that glistened there. Without a thought, she dipped her head and began to nuzzle the older woman's soft lips. She reveled in the pungent scent and salty flavor. Zhura imagined how it would feel on her own cunt, lapping up and down along the edge of the lips, spreading them open, exploring every pink fold and crevice inside. The throaty moans Ntoza made only egged Zhura on. Soon she was tonguing deep within Ntoza's sodden trench. Ntoza lifted her hips, drawing Zhura even deeper. Zhura's nose dipped into the older woman's humid slot. She felt as if she were drowning.

When Zhura began to softly nibble on the hooded button atop Ntoza's slit, the older woman almost immediately trembled, tumbling into a sudden orgasm. Zhura finished by licking the outer lips clean, while Ntoza caught her breath.

"This vigor I feel," Zhura said. "It comes from drinking the... juices of a woman?"

Ntoza lay silent for a moment. Then she sat up, raising Zhura up to kiss her on the lips. "The living fluids of the body have great magical power. Blood, semen, a woman's secretions. Even tears," she said. "Your power comes from sexual fluids."

Zhura shook her head in disbelief, looking askance at the older woman.

"Zhura, even the people of Boma know you have power, yet you doubt it. Do you not believe there is magic in your herbs, in your skill to heal?"

"What can I do with this power?"

"Once you have learned how to use it?" Ntoza asked. "Anything."

"Do you have this... ability, too?"

"Some," Ntoza admitted. "Not like you. There is much potential in you."

Zhura brushed Ntoza's thick mane of hair aside, baring the ritual scarring on her neck and upper shoulder. "Your spots," she said. "What is their meaning?"

"They are the markings of a Tandi woman," Ntoza said. "Not all wear them, but I

do so proudly."

"Tandi? That is your tribe?"

"Yes."

"Was my mother Tandi?"

"Yes," Ntoka chuckled, but her expression was hungry. "No more questions for now! There will be more time later."

She pressed Zhura down to lie on her back on the pelts. Then the older woman bent to begin kissing Zhura's feet, ankles, calves, the underside of her knees. Zhura moaned with desire.

"Come south with me," Ntoza murmured. "Come home, Zhura."

"Yes..."

She looked up eagerly as Ntoza lifted a leg over her face and settled down atop her, her sopping slit and shapely ass beckoning just in front of Zhura's face. Within moments, they were locked in a writhing knot of sexual need, each supping from the other's fount, until each cried out in release.

After Zhura ducked out of the hut, she relit her brand, and started back downriver. When she was out of sight of the grass dome, she stopped, looking for some sign of her friend.

She began to worry, but finally she saw movement ahead. Amina waved to her and hurried ahead, with her own torch lit. They joined up again only when they had crossed over the river.

Twigs and bits of dirt stuck in Amina's frizzy hair, and her skirt and blouse were mud-stained. Zhura recalled that her friend had had to pick her way through the forest mostly in the dark.

"Are you well?" Zhura asked. "Ntoza said she had a demon guardian."

"I saw it," Amina nodded. "But I escaped unharmed."

"I'm sorry," Zhura said. "She said they wouldn't hurt a human."

"What did you learn?"

"Much," Zhura replied. "I must see Menga."

The village was completely dark. A dog barked at them from a stall, but no one stirred.

"You rutted her again, didn't you?" Amina said. "I smell her on you."

Zhura stopped. She turned to her friend in the torchlight. Amina looked,,, scared. Her dark eyes shifted nervously and she glanced behind them, as if she were afraid they had been followed.

Zhura felt powerful, capable, like she could do anything - just like Ntoza said. She yearned to share that with Amina somehow. But she struggled with her own feelings, and what it might mean to leave Boma.

"Does that bother you?"

"Can you trust this woman, Zhura?"

"No," Zhura replied. "But I don't think she wants to harm me."

In truth, her heart raced whenever she thought of Ntoza. Since leaving the hut, she'd thought of little else. She thrilled with the adventure of it, imagining how her life could be different.

"I see that this is important to you," Amina said. "I will speak to Menga too."

Zhura groaned, inwardly. Her adopted father hated Amina.

This would not go well.

**

Menga the ironsmith sat on a massive stool in the fold of his compound where he did his metalwork. Three bloomeries, each the height of a tall man, were built upon the reddish clay of the yard. The beehive-shaped furnaces were the birthplace of the plows, blades, hooks and arrowheads that kept the village of Boma working.

This morning at dawn, none of the bloomeries were fired up. When they were cold, Menga was not happy.

The pot-bellied smith listened with a frown to what Zhura told him. While she spoke, he rubbed a balding pate and his eyes took on a faraway gaze.

"You're going to Morore," he said, "because of the words of a woman who knows your mother's kin?"

Zhura, sitting across from him, nodded. "She said they were looking for me."

"Mmm," he mused.

Zhura waited for him to say more. Her eyes wandered across the yard to the place where he taught her to swing a staff, where he played with her and his sons, and where he recounted stories of ancestral heroes and vile demons.

"Let me share some words with you," Menga said. "Nineteen rains ago, I went south with my brother in arms to fight in the Impi War. We fought in battle after battle, alongside a motley gathering of warriors, cowards, mercenaries and refugees. We lost every time. We were always in retreat."

He wrung his forearms and hands as he spoke, great meaty slabs of flesh on a body as squat as a hippo. Zhura could almost imagine him as a formidable young warrior.

"Until the final battle, at Bandiri Slopes. Men - and many women - came from all of the Hill Kingdoms, and as far away as Ikanje to make a last stand against the Sizwe advance. And on that day, we won.

"The hero of that battle was my brother in arms, a man named Yende, from Ngofama village, right here in this valley. He forged a new kingdom at Bandiri Slopes, in what is now the town of Morore.

"I stayed with Yende for several months after the battle, but I always knew I would come back home to the valley to marry, and make babies. It was in the days that I was preparing to leave that Yende came to me in secret. With an infant.

"You see," Menga said, "Yende was already betrothed to a woman from the noble ancestral lines of the Hill Kingdoms to strengthen his claim to royalty. He told me the infant was his bastard daughter, whose mother had died and entrusted the child to him. And he was entrusting that child to me."

"I am the daughter of a king," Zhura mused. It was like a story out of legend.

"The illegitimate daughter of a king."

"That does not matter to me," she said.

"It should," Menga scolded. "Yende's position was delicate then. It is still precarious today. The Sizwe may have lost to the Hill Kingdoms on the field of battle, but in the eighteen rains that followed, the empire won - with intrigue, trade, and knives in the dark. Most of the Hill Kingdoms now pay tribute to the Sizwe, and they would like nothing more than to overthrow your father."

"I just want to see my mother's kin," Zhura protested.

"This woman is lying to you," Menga said. "She surely knows who your father is, and seeks to use you in some power scheme. Think, Zhura! If your mother's kin could be trusted, your mother would have left you to them, instead of an absent father. Yende would have given you to them instead of me."

Zhura shook her head, unwilling to believe it. Ntoza said she didn't know her father. That could have been true.

"Someone spoke when they shouldn't have," Menga said, thinking aloud. "Some drunken old warrior, someone who overheard a secret eighteen years ago. The rumor got out, and this woman came here to see if it was true, to see what advantage her faction could gain from it.

"You may be threatened by Yende himself - or his wife - to protect the legacy of his legitimate heirs," Menga said. "Don't you see?"

"You don't want me to go to Morore," Zhura said. "What else can I do?"

Menga looked up. The iron gate to the yard, usually open so that villagers could watch him work, had been closed this morning for privacy. Now it swung wide, and Kaj entered with Amina in tow. The ironsmith's scowl, if it were possible, deepened even more.

"Morning, father," Kaj said, pulling up stools.

Menga grunted.

"We must flee," Kaj announced.

"You?!" Zhura gaped. "Flee where?"

"What do you mean," Menga growled, "by

we

?"

"Amina and I are to be married," Kaj said. "Father, you must give us your blessing."

"I will not. You will not marry

her

."

"I don't want to flee!" Zhura interrupted. This was not about them.

"Why, Zhura?" Amina asked. "Because this woman rutted you?"

Menga's eyes widened, and he turned to Zhura. "Is this true? Why would someone sent by your mother's kin seek to seduce you? Can't you see that she intends to use you?"

"For once," Kaj said softly, "a stranger was kind to you. There is nothing to be ashamed of."

Zhura looked at each of them helplessly, feeling tears well up. If what Ntoza said was true about Zhura's power, maybe she was trying to enlist Zhura in some political cause.

"If honey does not draw you," Menga said. "Those who come for you will use other means to bring you under their control. Warriors. Demons. Sorcery. No one in Boma can protect you from kingmakers, Zhura. Not even me."

"Where would I go?"

"Namu-on-the-sea," Kaj said. "The Ikanje Empire is far from here. Its greatest city would be a place for us to start anew, away from the petty squabbles and hatreds of this place," he said, narrowing his eyes as he glanced at his father.

"Mind your tongue," Menga snapped. He pointed at Amina. "That girl's own mother calls her a thief! How foolish are you to think that you are a better judge?"

Amina began to retort, but Kaj silenced her with a look.

Menga glared at them all, "By the First Woman's sodden tits! Babes, all of you! Following your

yoni

and your

popo

, instead of the wisdom of your elders."

It pained Zhura to see her family - as close as she came to having one - fighting. "I imagine," Zhura said, "that your elders said the same to you, when you and my father went marching off to war."

Menga opened his mouth in surprise, but words seemed to fail him. He stared at Zhura.

"Madness," he scoffed, finally. But the fight was fading from his eyes, yielding to resignation.

"Zhura is like a sister to me," Kaj said. "I will not abandon her now."

"Nor will I," said Amina.

"My brother can take over the smithy in my place," Kaj added.

Zhura gasped in surprise. Kaj had so much to lose, leaving Boma. His cheerful personality endeared him to most, and he was the obvious heir to his father's trade. He would only have chosen to go if Amina had already made up her mind. But Zhura did not expect that Amina would flee with her, even if it meant losing her closest friend. Somehow, they had come to the decision to join Zhura on their own. As much as she was relieved to not be alone, she was missing something.

Zhura looked at her friends, wiping a teary eye. Her fingers came away smudged with blue. "I don't know how to thank you," she said.

Menga glowered at them all for a long time. Finally, he threw up his hands. "Make haste then. The route to Ikanje will take you south towards Morore. The faster you move, the safer you will be. Take whatever you need."

Kaj nodded. He rose from his stool, taking Amina to begin packing gear.

When they were gone, Menga eyed Zhura, "There is something else," he said.

The grizzled smith got up and ducked into a hut he used for storage. He came out again, carrying a dark piece of cloth over his arm, as well as three sheathed blades. He motioned Zhura over to a rough-hewn wooden table.

"Yende told me this came with you, from your mother," the smith said, spreading the cloth on the table. "You were wrapped in it."

Zhura recognized it as a simple wrap skirt, one that a woman would tie around her waist. To carry her child, a mother would simply pull the skirt up over her back, creating a pouch. The material was smooth and slightly iridescent, like a soft snakeskin, patterned with whorls of red and white that looked like blossoms.