Kraals and Magic

Prologue

Cover by; LagendaryReaper

Prologue

Fruits and vegetables and clothware and more filled the market stalls. A vast crowd of market goers came and went. Ike went with the crowd following the market street in the stream of the ordered pandemonium. "If only you are one for festivities." Porgo said, shuffling inside the bag. Still angry.

"I am." Ike chuckled. "I used to attend many," he mused "but stopped when I realised every time I do someone winds up dead."

Porgo sniggered. "You change happy events to sad ones," he agreed "typical of you." The rabbit paused for sometime. "That festival was a happy event."

Ike scoffed. Market goers close by__ men and women wearing ankara___ looked his direction with blank or wondering gazes. To them it would seem Ike is talking to himself or them. Or___ to others that heard Porgo___ they would think he was speaking to someone they didn't notice. True the last. Very true, but not as they would imagine.

Ike took another line in the intersection. This street was shaded above by a cloth roofing. The atmosphere was cool, an odd scent hung in the air, and the street was scarcer than others. Shop walls here were painted a bright green or blue, the sellers were strange people with piercings and mountains of jewelries on their bodies. Men and women alike. This is a place where witchcraft things are sold.

Porgo sensed the cohesion of the place with his nature and sprang out of the bag to the ground, crawling beside Ike. "Friend!"

Ike spun at the voice. The caller was a gnarly old man with scraggly beard, dried skin wrapped in a brown rag. He had two big hopped silver ear rings hanging from his ears. A variety of objects lay on the mat before him. "We have herbs for a woman's heart young man. We can also chase jhinns that follow you."

Ike neglected him. He could just about discern the shop he was headed. Its walls were green with red paints seemingly daubed carelessly. A closer look revealed it was design. Three ladies in matching green ankara dresses and hair ties stood at the doorway. They turned to Ike as he approached.

"Soothe seer, meet a soothe seer, see your future!" They sang with gusto, bright smiles on their faces.

"Prostitutes." Porgo spat.

The three glanced at the rabbit, surprise flashing on their faces.

"Jhinn or gods?" One said. She was an older one, looking to be in her forties. Though Ike knows looks can be a deceiving tool to measure age. He's prove indeed. The leader___ Ike thought of her___ had black painted lips, black eyeshadow; her braided hair falling from beneath her hair tie to her back. She was beautifully. A prostitute, but beautiful.

"None of your business." The rabbit snapped. He was small, brown, grouchy. He will appear like any other rabbit at first glance till you try to discern his face and realize you can't that's when you will understand he's not. Or if he moves wrongly, or talk, or does any other thing a rabbit doesn't do.

Ike fished a number of blue cowries from his pouch, just underneath his mottled ankara cloak, and handed it to the woman. "I will like to save myself." He told her earnestly. The woman glanced into his eyes with her big brown ones then ushered him into the shop.

Ike entered, soon surprised. The room was empty with polished wooden shelves filled with beads and canes at the flanking walls. A curtain of beads draped down where he faced, where he glimpsed movements beyond. The lightning was dim green, coming from a strange green fire burning freely from the fire place beside. The floor was marbled and clean, and surely not what he expected.

"Don't just stand there, come in." A hoarse voice came beyond the curtain.  Ike glanced at Porgo___ that kept sniffing the air___ then pulled the sword hung on his side, it was silver and shimmering with blue etchings, and advance with prudent steps. He waved the beads sideways at the demarcation and stooped in.

It was the same styled room, only this side's wall was covered with tapestries and the chamber was better furnished. An old man, hair all white, was on a cushion chair watching him enter. He was dressed in an ankara wrapper wrapping about his body and slippers. The seer looked pointedly at Ike's sword and waved casually. "No need of that yet." He said.

Ike sheathed the curved sword and continued in, to the side of the room, keeping a certain distance with the man. The man followed his every move like a cat studying a snake. After a moment of silence Ike spoke. "You are the seer. The scholar said you might be able to help me."

"Before you killed him." The seer completed. He turned to the curtain as Porgo came in. "A jhinn? Is that the payment for my service?"

"No." Ike pulled his sword again and held it out for the man's inspection. "My sword. The Houts will spend treasures for it."

The seer studied it critically. "How many lives did it take?"

"A million, five thousand, two hundred and forty five in my hand. Most during the pact war."

The man did not seem surprised by the number, like most of them. They all seemed to know, seemed to see him coming.... and it always ends the same. With a body...

"And you want me to clean that much blood?" The seer asked. "You can't kill someone and undo it Ike, you should have known that before you started killing. There is no forgiveness for men like you, you have too much blood in your hands."

Ike sighed, heart broken. "I thought your Boka religion is about  forgiveness."

"Is about cleaning one's past, but not to men like you." The seer answered, sounding sorry. "I can't help you Ike, then you should as well get it over with with killing me as you did the rest. That's how you will continue, leaving a trail of bodies in your wake till there are no more seers, wise men, or spirits to kill."

"You are wrong." Ike drew closer and stabbed his sword through the man's stomach. The man gasped. Ike drew his mouth close to the man's ear. "I can still be saved." He breathed. He twisted then pulled the blood soaked sword out.

The seer twitched and fell off his cushion with wide eyes. "You can't be saved... because you are not ready. Break the.... system that made you, then maybe, maybe... you won't still be a.... monster."

Ike regarded him, dying, helpless. "Why tell me now?" He asked.

Still the man spoke. "Because... I wanted... to... understand...." The man fell silent, dead. Understand what?. The man was right though; even Ike can't revive the dead. The dead is gone, sometimes better with their words.

Ike cleaned his sword on a rag and sheathed it back. He went outside looking up, wondering if there is any god that can save him out there, that will be merciful to a man with more than a million kills and keeps killing. The idolers, the shamans, the jhinn consorters, the scholars, the wise men and seers all couldn't save him. Their gods couldn't.

The prostitutes by the door kept singing for costumers at the passersby. Ike glanced at them then snorted and started picking his way the way he came. Porgo caught up with him. "That was a cleaner death than many." The rabbit said.

"Rougher than many." Ike replied. "Cutting his head would have been cleaner in some ways."

Porgo climbed up his leg, sinking back into the bag. "But that would have lost its spiritual feeling." The jhinn claimed. "They is always something about stabbing a man in the stomach. Makes you look more professional."

Ike thought about it. "Other days I will argue." He said recalling a distant memory. "They was a man called Kabari, I killed him, he kept coming back."

"You stabbed him in the stomach?" Porgo questioned.

"Yes, of course."

"And how did you kill him at last?"

"I cut off his head and a Kura eat it...." Ike hesitated as if he couldn't believe it himself. "I don't know if he still came back...."

Soon they went out of the line and joined again the crowd of the market. Getting swallowed as they followed the stream.

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