Free Muezzinland by Stephen Palmer Page B

her. She cursed and stamped her feet.
    They walked on until the houses began giving way to trees. In a glade Gmoulaye prepared her sacrifice. A smoky fire burned; she mumbled and threw herbs upon the flames, then drank a potion of spinach and roselle, a natural intoxicant. Nshalla watched, both repelled and fascinated. Her city background made her shun these rituals, but something, perhaps some deep Aphrican root, attracted her. Gmoulaye cut the throat of the chicken and let the blood drip upon the horn, until it was crimson. Then she threw the struggling fowl upon the flames, causing the fire to leap up, until, in just a few seconds, it had died, and so had the flames. Unsteadily, Gmoulaye stood up.
    Nshalla did not see where the man came from. He was real, but he appeared suddenly. Perhaps he had hidden behind a tree. He took Gmoulaye's arm, steadying her.
    He was dressed in a black cloak and a shiny top hat. His other clothes were of brown, mud-stained cotton, contrasting with his blanched face. In one hand he held a cora—the large harp attached to a pumpkin gourd, popular throughout Aphrica. It had been wired to an electric amplifier so that when it was brushed the pure sound of its strings became a metallic thrum.
    "I am Massamba Kouyate," he said. He let Gmoulaye go and played a few power-chords in his cora, thrashing his head up and down in time to the rhythm. Oily dreadlocks fell from under his top hat.
    "They call me the Baron."
    Again he strummed his cora, leaping about now, head thrashing, legs jerking, holding the musical instrument at his groin, his face a contorted grimace.
    "You will never be Empress," he said. "Accra will one day be a ruin. You have been through the forest and you listened to the spirits there."
    Nshalla decided it was time to return to the town. Grabbing Gmoulaye's hand she ran off. Glancing back she saw the Baron playing a solo, fingers a blur, the cora's neck raised, the gourd between his legs, his tongue pushed out from between grinning lips and wriggling in an obscene gesture.
    Back at Inn Founi Kouni, all was quiet. Too quiet. On the top floor they noticed the door to Msavitar's room open. Nshalla poked her head around the door, to see him lying motionless on his bed.
    She squealed and ran in, Gmoulaye following. He lay unconscious, or dead, on his back, sheets a rumple around him. He was naked. Without touching him Gmoulaye examined the body.
    "He is not dead," she said. She sniffed at his loins, which were damp. "He has been with a woman recently." She examined the rest of him, then made her diagnosis. "He is a magician, an illusionist. His soul has been removed and put into some external object. If we cannot find his external soul he will stay like this forever, in a deathly trance."
    Horrified, Nshalla put her hands to her mouth. "But… but what can we do?"
    Gmoulaye's eyes narrowed. "Is it our job to save him? He is suspicious, an agent of your mother's as you have yourself admitted—"
    "I only suggested it."
    "—and not worth the effort."
    Nshalla covered the body with the bedsheets. "We've got to find his soul," she said. "We can't leave him."
    "He's a vagrant, a thief, a con-man. His soul is probably some wrinkled little toad with bad breath. Let him go! Is this not what you wanted, Nshalla, to be free of him? We can leave Ouagadougou tomorrow and be on our way."
    "No," Nshalla said. "I have to save him. He's helped us get this far."
    Gmoulaye spat upon the floor. "With his own static-box in Ashanti."
    Nshalla shrugged. "That might not have been him"
    "Do not be so naive, girl."
    "Don't call me a girl!"
    Bristling, they confronted one another. Then Gmoulaye said, "You can sleep in here tonight to protect him. I shall sleep in the other room."
    Nshalla collected her belongings without a word. Locking Msavitar's door she departed the inn, making down the Chemin du Gourounsi until she stood in the forest where her father had spoken.
    "Ruari!" she softly called. "Ruari, it's