Shaka the Great (73 page)

Ndlela shuts his eyes as the enormity of this business hits him afresh—as if he hasn't already been sitting here agonizing for so long; as if he hasn't been gnawing at it, twisting it, turning it around in his restless mouth.

Hai, but recriminations won't help. Neither will asking why, or how.

There's even a chance that Mnkabayi might not be involved! (Yes, don't forget that! For maybe he is doing her a great injustice.)

Either way, though, she might be in danger.

What few realize about the impundulu—even some of those claiming they can create such a creature—is that one has to get both the muthi mixture and the dosage just right. Apply too much during the reawakening part of the ritual, and the subject will die, either before or shortly after being revived. Apply too little and the effects will soon wear off. That may take a while but it can happen. It's not unknown for someone believed dead and buried to come wandering out of the bush a few years later. This is one of the ways an induna like Ndlela has been able to find out more about how the process works.

To date he's questioned two men and one woman. In the case of the latter he had been with his father and Jama had then been king. The two men had both “surfaced” during the early years of Senzangakhona's reign. Ndlela has always suspected the same wizard was responsible for “doctoring” all three. None had been quite the same after their ordeal, and they told vague tales of being put to work in the fields; with the woman also claiming she'd been sent out to steal babies. None could remember exactly where they'd been kept, and all three had died shortly after returning home.

Ndlela had then ordered the original graves of the two men to be opened, and so was able to confirm that one aspect of the ritual did indeed involve the substitution of the victim's body by a “dummy.” (And both families had offered similar descriptions of the mysterious “sangoma” who just happened to be on hand when the “death” occurred, ready to mutter about a curse and argue the need for a burial service that involved just him and his apprentice. The relatives could visit the grave only after the appropriate cleansing ceremony had been conducted.)

At the time, he had spoken to Nobela. Trusting him, and acknowledging that it was good for an outsider to know something about the process, if only to recognize the signs and thus know when to summon her, she had said he could ask his questions. However, she would tell him only what she felt it was safe for him to know. (He'd been much younger then, and had replied: in that case, why didn't she simply tell him what she wanted him to know. Nobela had chuckled and said it was the nature of his questions that would allow her to see how much it was safe to tell him.)

Even if the right amount of muthi was applied, the extent of the reawakening could not be controlled, she explained. At first the impundulu would seem as groggy as a drunkard, as clumsy as a child. Then it would become more conscious, more aware, for what use was an impundulu you couldn't train or teach?

She'd poured some water into the sand. “But even many of those I have sniffed out, who have performed this hideous ritual, don't realize how far this reawakening spreads”—she indicated the puddle at their feet—“or how deep it seeps.”

And so sometimes the creature will regain some of its old memories, and at other times the impundulu may gradually become aware of its current state. Without knowing why, it will realize that it's trapped in an unnatural limbo. Driven by pain and rage, it'll then turn on those who control it. “Hai, and perhaps this opens the gate and, at last, allows the ancestors to come to its aid,” she had suggested. “For somehow it knows not only to seek out the sorcerer who created it—and who himself may be long gone—but the ones who have controlled that sorcerer.”

So this is one way Mnkabayi might be in danger.

However, there is a pattern to these recent killings, a method to this madness, and even if Mnkabayi is not one of those who ordered the creation of an impundulu, she might very well become the zombie's next victim.

And again it's as if the floor tilts, and he has to fight not to let himself slide down into anger and recriminations.

What was she thinking? How could she not have realized what a terrible mistake this would be? Why didn't she tell him what she had in mind? If only, if only, if only … Again that assumption of guilt, those foolish pleas as efficacious as a mud spear.

Instead, you can do this, and you know this …

Like a crocodile, an impundulu has a lair, and it's been built for it by its masters. It will return there once it's carried out its instructions, bringing with it whatever items it was asked to fetch. Even in its altered state, it still needs to be fed, and if you want to prolong its life, you'd also do well to tend to any wounds it might have since acquired. It might be impervious to pain, but those wounds can still fester and rot. All of this can be
accomplished after feeding it, because the paste it receives will also put it to sleep. And so the creature is kept hidden, and out of the way until you next require its services.

He knows this, which means he can search out the lair.

Quietly they gather in the darkness, a creeping, seeping, shifting mass that parts whenever they brush up against thatch, parting like jaws, then closing again, moving on. And it's as if the ground has come alive and the huts are being carried away. Dawn arrives quickly in these parts at this time of year, so that when the boy is momentarily distracted by the shoulders and elbows of another udibi inserting himself next to him and looks back, the sky has suddenly lightened and the shapes have become warriors. They have surrounded the king's abode, leaving only an apron of space around the doorway.

“Hey,” hisses the boy, as the other youth, who has pushed in next to him, now uses his bulk to try and ease him sideways.

The other udibi looks down at him, and the boy sees it's Mpande. The boy's reassignment to the Induna is only temporary; yet, despite being older than the one they call Mthunzi, Mpande continues to serve as Dingane's udibi, and there's no talk yet of him joining a regiment.

“Oh, it's you,” says the prince. “Please accept my apologies, Little One. I did not recognize you without your Nduna.”

The boy is saved from having to respond by a lone voice calling out to the King. The words rise through the silence, and are repeated to become a song. Then, one by one, other voices, one from each of the regiments present, join the first voice. Plaited together, they strengthen the song as it moves, gradually, around the circle.

Then all the soldiers join in a refrain, calling to the King. “Woza ke, woza lapha!”

Just as it seems the clamor can't get any louder—and see how it has scoured the last stains of night from the sky—the King himself is there, appearing, as if by magic, at the door of his hut.

After a dip in volume to acknowledge his appearance, the song grows louder again.

“Woza ke, woza lapha!”

Louder and more insistent, for the King isn't moving. He's simply standing there with his arms at his sides.

“Woza ke, woza lapha!”

He glistens in the morning light, for he has been daubed with Night Muthi.

“Woza ke, woza lapha!”

The King must come. The King must come now.

But still he doesn't move. Instead he seems to be listening for something within—or beyond—the song.

“Woza ke, woza lapha!”

Mpande bends down. Stale breath in the boy's ear. “I can smell the stink from here.”

Aghast, Mthunzi tries to move away from the prince. But there's no space, and Mpande waits for the boy to look around and see if anyone else has heard those mocking words; and waits for him to realize that, even if they have heard them, none of the others will dare chastise a prince of the Bloodline. Then he says, “And I'm not talking about the muthi!”

Gripping the boy's elbow he pulls him closer, turns him round so he can see the King's hut once more. “Come now, you are going to miss the best part!”

An ululation. Shrill, vibrating, bending the air. The wing-beat of a million swallows. Silver crickets in the moonlight. And the boy sees how the ranks next to the fence of the isigodlo move aside to allow the King's concubines to come forward. And the ululation becomes a song.

“Woza ke, woza lapha!”

And the men join in.
The King must come. The King must come now.

At last, with the women still several meters away, the King begins to move.

Increasing their pace, the concubines split into two lines as they cross the clearing in front of the King's hut. Just as they reach the warriors on the opposite side, the assembled ranks part. The women run down the corridor opened up, so as to line the route Shaka will take.

When the boy's eyes seek out the King again, he sees Shaka has been joined by four inyangas, who follow several paces behind him.

Now the udibis, and various other servants who have commandeered this spot, must run forward if they are to see what happens next. Not that they have to worry about finding a place, for the very youngest among them have already been ordered to keep an area free for them at the cattlefold.

The King stops at the royal entrance to the isibaya. The inyangas draw closer. One is holding a potsherd. Shaka turns to him. The inyanga bows his head, raises his hands. Gooey, glistening blackness thicker than molasses. The King slips three fingers into the mixture. It's a more concentrated form of the medicine that covers his body. In the same way the warriors had seemed to envelop the huts in the predawn darkness, so this muthi seems to come alive and reform around his fingers.

Muthi of the dead moon, isifile, and the ngolu mnyama namhla, the dark day thereafter. Body dirt and soul substances mixed with ancient incantations, now coating his fingers.

Shaka opens his lips …

Draws the muthi into his mouth …

And turns to face the rising sun, a blaze of orange smeared across the horizon, the purple sky changing to blue overhead …

… and spits.

The ncinda, then the chintsa—licking the Black Muthi off his fingertips, then spitting it at the rising sun.

“Wo vuma Ndaba, hayi zi zi!” It's a chant picked up by a lone
voice, then by another, and another: “Wo vuma Ndaba, hayi zi zi! Wo vuma Ndaba, hayi zi zi! Wo vuma Ndaba, hayi zi zi!”

Then comes the refrain from the warriors gathered in the massive cattlefold. “Wo vuma, Ndaba, wo ye wo ye. Wayi vuma indaba yemkhonto.”

Now Shaka can enter the isibaya.

Accepting a shield and iklwa from his inceku, or body servant, he strides on past the ibandla tree …

While he was spitting at the sun, the men who summoned him out went sweeping past the huts that line the inner palisade, so as to enter the cattlefold from the bottom. This is their space, for they are the Black Regiments, the newer amabutho, comprising younger men, and they are identified as such by regimental shields in which black markings predominate. The amabutho at the top, closest to the isigodlo, are the White Regiments, or the older formations, such as the Wombe and Fasimba impis, whose members wear white feathers in their headbands on official occasions. The men squatting, the regiments are formed up in semicircles, radiating like ripples away from Shaka himself. Despite the size of the cattlefold, there's not enough space to accommodate all of the regiments in this great muster, so the four newest amabutho have formed up outside the main gate.

As for the civilians, several hundred of those, who are lucky or influential enough, line the inner palisade and stand on whatever they can to peer over the wall or else they try to catch a glimpse of the proceedings through the gaps between the poles. The rest, the majority, stand or sit among the huts located between the inner and outer walls, looking as rapt as if they were sitting right at the King's feet.