Irregular Verbs (21 page)

The pain was intense, every inch of her body licked by the flames. Her muscles froze at the fire’s touch, trying to recoil from it, but there was nowhere to escape.

She had a moment’s respite, a cool touch on her face, and in that moment she reached out and seized the chain that led up through the wall of fire. Again words and sentences she barely understood ran through her, but she focused on climbing the chain up and through the wall.

Now she was in a space like one of the street markets: shapes her eyes could not resolve flew at dizzying speeds through narrow alleys, while lights flashed over the hundreds of doors on every wall. Noise like the shouts of a hundred hawkers and the blare of a thousand car horns surrounded her, almost driving her back into the wall of fire.

Desperate to escape, she ran to the nearest door; its handle, though, was of a design her hand simply could not grasp. She ran to another door, found it the same: another door, then another, before finally finding one she could open. A chain ran through the opened doorway, and she followed it gratefully, glad to be away from the lights and the noise.

When she reached the end of the chain she got a sensory feed: just vision and motor feedback, a view of a carpeted floor and the bottom of a sofa.

The vacuum cleaner by Adegoke’s feet suddenly whirred to life, moved a shuddering foot towards him. His hand jerked, spilling a few drops of whisky onto his trousers.

“Honestly, nephew,” his uncle said, “do they really still tell you such stuff in the villages?”

“Uncle, I—” Adegoke looked down nervously at the vacuum cleaner advancing on his foot. “Is that how you won your position here in the city, by magic?”

His uncle shook his head, turned to the computer sitting on his desk and pressed a key that made the screen light up. “Do not talk of such absurd stuff,” his uncle said. “I won my position because I had family willing to help me, like everyone else in Lagos.” He ran his finger in a spiral pattern over the screen, then tapped it twice; the vacuum went dark and stopped whirring, a few inches from Adegoke’s foot. “I went to Manchester Polytechnic, nephew, and I can tell you: there’s no such thing as magic.”

The sensory feed cut out before Safrat could see where she was, and she found herself back in the noise and light of the market. Though she was a bit better prepared this time it still was overwhelming, and she went quickly through the next door she was able to open: here she had only a timer input and a dimmer to control, but again she was disconnected and driven back to the market. Through the next door she connected with a speed toggle and feedback motors that controlled sharp metal teeth, again being disconnected after a few moments. Finally she found a safe haven, somewhere with no motors or visual but with numeric and audio input. She took a moment to calm herself—the drugs were not keeping her heartbeat even, she had to remember—only half-listening to the audio feed until she recognized her foreman’s voice.

The lights dimmed and then flickered as Adegoke’s uncle peered at his computer screen, frowning; then the shredder on top of his wastebasket turned itself on, grinding away at nothing.

“Uncle, do you see?” Adegoke said, his voice rising. “This is the cost of doing magic you don’t understand.”

“I told your mother to come with me, to the city,” his uncle said, not turning from the screen. He ran his finger in a long curve over it, tapped it in three spots, and the shredder stopped. “I told her not to raise her children in a backwater, but she wanted to stay by your grandfather.” He took a deep breath, shook his head. “So I promised her, any of her sons that wanted to come to the city, I would get them jobs. She did not tell me she would raise them as savages.”

Adegoke was silent for a moment, shocked by his uncle’s outburst. He looked around at the now-quiet room, gathered his courage to speak. “You would not talk that way to my mother,” he said. “She taught me to respect the
eggun
and the
orishas
, and she would not want to see her brother mixed up in black magic.”

“For the last time, this is not magic,” his uncle said. He spun the computer around so that Adegoke could see the screen. “This connects to the main server. I control all the machines in my office through that, and the messages to and from the women go through there as well. Do you see? Not magic, just technology. Technology we control.”

Safrat listened carefully to what the two men were saying. She did not recognize the second voice, the one arguing with the foreman, but it was clear from what he had said that he was the sorcerer. The
babalawo
had said she must confront him, and she expected this was as close as she was going to get.

“Let the women go,” the speakerphone said.

Both Adegoke and his uncle turned towards it. His uncle reached out for the TALK button, paused when he saw the light was already on. “Who is this?” he said angrily.

“Let the women go,” the speakerphone said again. “Remove your spell from them, in the name of Eleggua and Oggun.”

“Do you see, uncle?” Adegoke asked. “Do you see?”

“Will you shut up?” his uncle said. “This is no spirit. Someone has hacked into our server, and is playing games with us.” He reached for the phone, stopped and turned instead to his computer, swirling his finger over the screen and tapping it a half-dozen times.

“The women are suffering,” the speakerphone said. “Let them go.”

Adegoke’s uncle let out a snort. “I’ve sent a message to our computer security team,” he said. “This spirit will not be with us much longer.”

Unsure what to do now, Safrat withdrew from the phone. She had confronted the sorcerer, but did not think she had changed his mind; she wished she could ask the
babalawo
for help.

A piercing wail cut through the noise of the market: police sirens. Down both ends of the alley she was in she saw flashing red lights, had no doubt who they were pursuing. There was no time to find another door that would open, and no reason to think she could escape that way anyway; all she could do was go back down the chain she had climbed, through the wall of fire, and hope she could hide amongst the other women.

To her surprise the wall did not burn on her way down, and once she was back in the cattle pen she moved close to the bundle of readouts that bore her name. She watched her heart beating, tried to make it slow enough for her to rest.

Now that she had a moment she could think about what to do. She tried to think of stories she had heard where people outwitted
babalawos
, but there were none: in the stories, evil
babalawos
were always undone by their own magic.

Looking around, Safrat saw all the other women in the cattle pen around her: bundles of hearts and lungs and brains, the sorcerer’s messages being fed in and streaming out of them. She took a breath, readying herself for another trip through the wall of fire.

“She’s burning again,” Paul said.

Safrat’s body was twitching again in front of them, her chest rising and falling spastically. A low groan emerged from her throat.

“More water,” the
babalawo
said, shaking the bronze rattle over her head. “Elegua, bless our sister . . .”

Paul shook his head. “It’s too much for her. We have to shut this off.” He looked around at the booth, hoping to find a control he understood, but there was nothing. Instead he ran out into the hall of the telepresence station, looking for a way to contact the foreman.

The lights brightened, flickered and finally failed: only the glow of the computer screen was visible in the darkened office.

“Uncle . . .” Adegoke began.

“Secure the server,” his uncle was shouting at the phone. “I don’t care! Get it done!”

“What is happening, uncle?”

“That hacker crashed our server,” his uncle said.

Adegoke heard the cellphone at his belt buzzing, picked it up. The call display showed it was the emergency phone at the TP station, programmed to autodial his number. “Excuse me, uncle,” he said. “Yes?”

Two men in short-sleeve shirts ran in the door, both holding flashlights. “I am sorry, Mr. Oyelolo,” one of them said. “We’re getting too much traffic.”

“Is this the foreman?” the voice on Adegoke’s cellphone said.

“What about the firewall?”

“Who is this?” Adegoke asked.

“They’re getting right through somehow. It’s as though the messages were coming from our own system.”

“Messages?”

One of the men read from the screen. “Dear Sir: I have been requested by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. . . .”

“My sister Safrat is in booth—hold on—booth eleven,” the voice on the phone said. “Something is wrong. You must shut it off, now.”

Adegoke frowned, then looked over at his uncle conferring with the other two men. “Fix it,” his uncle was saying. “Block them out.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Oyelolo, but we’re not rated for that,” the other man said. “This must be a problem with the architecture. Only the men from the Bank can fix it.”

“But if they fix it—if they see—”

Adegoke lowered his phone, covering the receiver with his palm. “Uncle—” he said.

His uncle turned to look at him, his eyes hard. “Damn it, boy, can’t you see that I am busy?”

“I am sorry, uncle,” Adegoke said. He held his phone to his mouth again, spoke softly. “Do not worry,” he said. “I think your sister will be all right in a minute.”

Safrat rose early, feeling better-rested than she had since coming to Lagos. The telepresence station had been closed ten days now, supposedly for repairs; the word was, though, that the old owners had given it up and let the World Bank run it directly. Meanwhile the foreman had paid everyone for the days when the telepresence station was being repaired, so long as they reported each day to collect their pay, and as the time passed they had all stopped talking in their sleep. Word had only come yesterday that the station was to re-open.

“I don’t like you going back there,” Paul said. “How do you know it’s any safer?”

Safrat looked around at the crowded room, the waking and still-sleeping forms around them, and shrugged. The job Tinubu had promised Paul had never materialized, and most days he still sold water; if the foreman had not kept paying her they would have been back to sleeping on a plastic sheet in the alley.

“What choice do I have?” she asked, and picked up her buckets to take to the borehole.

Child, why are you crying? Your first bleeding came this morning, and how many gifts did I give you to mark the day—black stone bracelets carved smooth, and a silver necklace so fine a spider might have woven it. Yes, and now you have your own house, as a sister should, walls woven tight against the wind. What reason do you have for tears?

Ah, I see. No, it is no shame—even a lion feels the bite of a fly, as we say. But you must understand, this is not a time for tears. Let me tell you a story—no, you have not heard it before; it is not one of our stories, but was told to me by one of the Dead Men. Of course not. They wear veils to face their gods, as we do; only their god is the sun, and he is everywhere, so they must go veiled whenever they are outside. Beneath they are as alive as you or me. Some are even handsome—and better lovers than our men, I can tell you.

Do not look so shocked, child. You are a sister, now, and must learn to deal with men. In truth the Dead Men are not so frightening; they are more like sisters than our men are.

This story is of a man named Ramaad—I do not know, it is a word in their language. The Dead Men do not live like us. Their men and women live in houses together, and they have many houses built together in large camps. Ramaad was the son of a trader, but his father was not wealthy, and Ramaad knew he would not be given any trading goods when he left home. He had only his friend Yas’al to help him, but he was no better off. His father Inkasar had once been a wealthy trader, travelling far from his home in Akhaduu and returning with the rarest goods, but had somehow lost it all; now he was even poorer than Ramaad’s father, with nothing to trade but the old stories he had heard, for which the other Dead Men in their pity gave him just enough food to live. So Ramaad and Yas’al, as they grew, would spend many hours together around Yas’al’s fire, planning the trading journeys they would someday make and listening to Yas’al’s father tell his stories. To Yas’al they were nothing but a poor old man’s ramblings, but Ramaad listened carefully, for his father had told him Inkasar truly had been to all those far places. There was one story especially that Ramaad remembered: a tale of a creature called a dragon that flew all over the world, and would bring great riches to anyone who killed it.

The day came when the two boys were old enough to start on their trading journeys, but Yas’al had to stay at home with his father, whose health was failing; so each of them vowed “I love you like salt”—which is the strongest oath the Dead Men have to swear by, since nothing is any good without salt—and pooled all they had, and it was Ramaad alone who left the village. He took their goods and traded well, returning each season to share what he had gained with Yas’al, and also the stories he had heard—for stories may bring food to a toothless mouth, as he well knew, and everywhere he went he would trade the stories he knew for others. One story, in particular, he hoped to hear more of. Yes, that one. You’re right, that is just what he thought; but for a long time he could learn nothing more, and he began to think that this story, at least, Inkasar had simply invented.

Years passed, and Ramaad and Yas’al became used to their arrangement; so much so that when Inkasar finally died, Yas’al did not join Ramaad on his journeys, as he had always said he would, but remained at home and took care of their affairs in Akhaduu. Ramaad continued his journeys, slowly building their stock of goods, taking only small risks and keeping them always one step ahead of hunger.

One day, while on a journey far from home, Ramaad heard of a man who was said to know something about dragons. The man lived several days travel off his route, but Ramaad had never forgotten the story Inkasar had told, and calculated that he could make the journey and still come out ahead on his trades. He made the trip only at night, for fear someone might follow him, and when he reached his destination found only a small hut, which he thought at first must be abandoned, as there was no fire within. Still he went inside, hoping he might somehow recoup his losses, and found there an old man so badly crippled it was a wonder he could feed himself. His legs were missing, and one of his arms, and when Ramaad saw the scars of fire on the man’s face and body he knew why the hearth was cold.

“Why do you disturb my pain?” the man asked, turning his sightless eyes towards the door.

“Forgive me,” Ramaad said. “I came because I heard there was a man here who knew of a creature called a dragon, but I did not mean to disturb you.”

“All you need to know you see before you,” the man said. “Do you hope the dragon will make you rich?”

“Yes,” Ramaad said.

“I am rich. Do you see the necklaces I wear?” the man asked, pulled down his robe to show the white scars that crossed and recrossed his neck. He waved his broken fingers at Ramaad. “Do you see my rings?” he said. “Lead me outside, then, where the sun will look on our bargain, even if I cannot.”

Ramaad took the old man’s arm, gently, and led him out of the hut. The sun was just rising, and the man flinched as its light touched his face.

“Will you tell me of the dragon?” Ramaad said. “I will pay you, if I can.”

“Give me all that you have, and I will tell you of the dragon.” The old man said. “Does that seem too much? If I tell you, and you succeed, you will not need the meagre things you have; if I tell you and you fail, you will not need them.”

“Very well,” Ramaad said, and he took up all his goods and laid them on the door of the hut. “Tell me what you know.”

The man twisted his ruined mouth into what might have been a smile, and began to tell his tale. “Today, as you know, all things living are either animals, made of flesh, or plants, made of wood; but in the beginning there lived also beasts made of stone. Dragons are the last of these. There are few of them left, and they roost only in the highest of mountains, to hide from those that would hunt them.”

“How can they be killed, if they are made of stone?” Ramaad asked.

“Though their skin cannot be pierced or their bones broken, still they have a weakness,” the man said. “When dragons were born the world was much hotter, so now their blood is always cooling in the air; their hearts must burn with fire to keep it from turning to hard rock. Still they drink water, as all things do, and some of that water turns to steam in their hearts; so they have a hole in their backs, like the spout of a kettle, where it is released. If you can block that hole the steam will have nowhere else to go, and it will kill the dragon.”

“And the treasure?” he asked. “Where does the dragon keep it?”

“The dragon is the treasure,” the old man said. “When the dragon dies his teeth become diamonds, his bones turn to gold, his heart to rubies, his flesh to rock and his brain to iron; his blood, most precious of all, becomes veins of the purest salt. The dragon, in death, is a mountain of riches, and all mountains were dragons, once.”

Ramaad thanked the old man and started the journey back to his trade route, leaving all but his skin tent and water gourd behind. He wondered how he would explain this foolishness to Yas’al, who had always thought his father’s stories were nonsense. He consoled himself with the thought that he would not have to face that question for a while; it would take at least a season of working another trader’s caravan to recoup his losses.

Still, as he looked back angrily at the old man’s hut, he saw a range of mountains in the distance, and he set his mind—better to be a fox in the grass than a dog by the fire, as our men say. He turned back and set out for the mountains, trading as he went the few things he had left for food and water. On he went, though the air grew cold and the ground broken and stony; up he went, though the air grew thin and cold, and each step drew his breath right out of his lungs.

Finally Ramaad could push himself no further. Again repenting his foolishness he fell to the ground and beat himself about the face, as the Dead Men do, when a shadow passed over him. Looking up he saw the shape of great wings above, larger than he had thought possible, and a faint ember of hope rekindled in him—though it was dashed almost at once, as he realized that to have any hope at all of killing the thing he would need to strike it from above. Still, passed water is good as beer in the desert, as we say. Gathering the last of his strength he climbed still higher, until at last he was able to see the monstrous thing just a few throws above him, its skin glowing red like a rock in a campfire. Now he remembered the old man’s scars and burns, and he was afraid, and hid himself in a hollow in the rock and watched the dragon circling outside. The very sight of it was terrifying, but he forced himself to watch for the jet of steam the old man had described; sure enough, after a few moments it rose, coming from a hole just a bit larger than a woman’s head. It might as well have been as big as a house, though, since he had no way to block it, and anyway no hope of reaching it from where he was. He cursed himself for not asking the old man what he had done—even though it had plainly failed, it might have given him an idea to start with. As he thought on that, he remembered the man’s scars and burns, and suddenly it came to him how the old man had attacked, and why he had failed, and he knew what he, in turn, must do.

Ramaad came out of his hiding place and stepped carefully to the ledge. The dragon was still circling, now a few throws higher, now lower. Gathering up all his courage, Ramaad waited until the dragon was as close as it ever came and jumped. It was too big to miss, but its back was scalding hot and as smooth as palm leaves; he landed on its neck and slid down its back, towards the steam vent. A white plume shot out as he approached. This, Ramaad thought, must have been where the old man had failed, falling into the vent and being burned himself. Ramaad gripped the dragon’s stony back with all his strength, feeling his fingernails torn out by the roots, and stopped himself before he was close enough to be scalded. He waited until the next jet came, close enough to soak him through with steam, then took his water-gourd and rammed it into the vent, pushing it down until he felt the beast’s muscles close around it. Immediately he could hear a rumbling down below, as the pressure started to build, and he let go of his grip and slid down the creature’s back and tail, finally falling off and landing on a rock ledge a dozen throws below. Above, the creature was starting to twist itself frantically, its great head straining to free the vent in its back. Ramaad, too badly hurt to move, lay still as he watched the dragon’s death throes. Finally the thing froze, and fell with a mighty crash to the ground below.

For a day and a night Ramaad lay there, burnt and broken, wondering if everything that had happened might be a fever dream. Finally, knowing that he would die soon if he did not have anything to drink, he rose and made his painful way back down the mountain. When he reached the bottom he found a stream, and drank from it gratefully; to his amazement, the water was almost hot enough to burn his mouth. He followed the stream to its source, found it in a cave hung with glittering jewels. This, he realized, must have been the dragon’s head, and as he walked inside he saw all of the treasures the old man had described.

“I have beaten you, old man,” Ramaad thought to himself as he chipped from the rock the tiniest of diamonds, which by itself was worth all the goods he had traded away. “For you killed the dragon, but could not take his treasure; I have done both.”

Even in his victory, though, Ramaad knew he had more work to do. If the other people of Akhaduu knew about his sudden wealth they would surely take advantage of him, or else think he had become a sorcerer and kill him for it. Even Yas’al, he thought, he had better not tell, for he had his father’s storytelling ways and many long nights to pass when Ramaad was away. How, then, could he use his treasure? At length he thought of the answer. He would take a little at a time—start with the salt, he could say he had gotten a good deal on it—and bring a little more back with him each trip. So long as he did it gradually no-one would be suspicious. He would simply be a skillful trader, building a stock that would soon let him and Yas’al bring gifts to their women to bear children on them.

Yas’al was not inclined to ask questions when Ramaad came back with a load of salt, the purest anyone in Akhaduu had ever seen, and for a few days the two were the most honoured men in the town—for the Dead Men value nothing better than a good trade, and it was clear Ramaad had done very well indeed. The two of them traded away much of the salt, as is customary for those who have received good fortune, to entertain their friends. Still, they had enough—more than enough; Ramaad had not been able to restrain himself entirely—and it was a long time before he felt the need to go on another voyage.

Ramaad went back out on his regular route, but once he was far enough away that he would not be seen he went back to the dragon and got another load of salt, a little more this time. Again he was honoured by the men of the town, but this time Yas’al did not quite share in the honour; indeed the townspeople were starting to say he was living off of Ramaad’s charity, just as his father had lived off theirs.

“It is only because I had to stay here in town that they honour you and not me,” he said to Ramaad. “Let me come on the next trip, so we can share the work and the reward.”

“I need you here to trade our goods when I am away,” Ramaad said.

“But we could carry twice as much if I came.”

“Without someone to watch our stores the salt would surely be stolen.”

“Then let us dissolve our partnership,” Yas’al said; for he had been very hurt by the mention of his father. “Give me my half of the salt as a stake, and I will trade with it myself.”

Ramaad did not want that either, because he was afraid Yas’al would try to follow him to the source of his treasure, so he said, “I swore I loved you like salt, and you swore the same to me. That is a vow that cannot be broken. Remain.”

Mention of their oath seemed to remind Yas’al of his good fortune, and he said nothing more on the matter and let his friend go on his journey alone. When Ramaad returned with another load of pure white salt, though, it seemed to Yas’al that the jokes about him had grown louder, while the townspeople’s admiration for Ramaad grew ever greater, and it choked him like a date pit in his throat. He too was clever, though in his own way (which was much like his father’s), and he devised a way to get Ramaad to share his secrets. He waited until they were again entertaining friends, drinking jug after jug of honey beer; he had filled his own jug halfway with water, though, to keep his wits about him while Ramaad drank his fill. Then, pretending to be drunk, he said to his friend, “Ramaad, I have never regretted the oath we swore together. From that day to this I have loved you like salt.”