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stare out the back window. Her gaze was caught by a tower of intense colored
light which was reaching for the sky like a tornado straining to break free.
The tide of shetani parted to spill around the smooth-sided spire that was
climbing heavenward from the belly of Olkeloki's little clay pot, those in
back running over and trampling the ones up front.
Merry bounced off the ceiling once as Oak sent them careening wildly down the
steep bank. As soon as they hit the sand he wrenched the wheel hard right.
Swerving and sliding and picking up speed, they began to retrace their path
back downriver.
How far? Oak asked Olkeloki. He had to yell in order to make himself heard
over the stentorian hiss of the spire of light, which by now had climbed
higher than the tallest tree, and over the hysterical babble of the shetani
horde.
Not far. The old man had joined Merry in looking out the back window. Now he
spun and squinted forward. It cannot be far. We do not have much time. I did
not get the chance to thank all of you for rescuing me.
Save it until the job's finished. In the rear-view mirror he saw the shetani
spill into the sand river.
Dozens were crushed by the weight of their fellows. Thousands more came
skittering and running in mad pursuit of the fleeing car.
And something huge, something that dwarfed even the Spirits of the Earth, was
coming after them under the sand.
He forced himself to focus on the river ahead. If they struck a hidden rock or
concealed log now it would be fatal. Where the hell was the weakness, the tear
in the fabric? The sand river seemed to stretch on to infinity, heat
shimmering above the granular horizon. Some of the shetani were starting to
gain on them, including the gargantuan unseen shape that was tunneling its way
beneath the sand.
Abruptly the way was blocked. There was something in front of them. It was
part shetani and part real and part something else, and it stood directly
athwart the old tire tracks Oak was following. Even if he'd had the
inclination to try to go around it, he didn't have time. It had emerged from
beneath the sand directly in their path.
It was at least as big as the four-wheeler. Massive paws sought purchase in
the bed of the river. The magnificent black mane seemed fashioned from smoke.
The wind whipped at it, tearing off bits and pieces and making its owner
appear as though he were on fire. Eyes that were red-rimmed coals glared at
them. When it roared Oak could feel the sand shift beneath the wheels and when
it snarled it showed fangs the length of the blood-stained wrench bouncing on
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the floor of the car. The sound chilled his blood and turned his muscles to
jelly, but somehow he held on to the wheel.
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Muscles went taut beneath titanic shoulders. Oak heard a weak voice whisper
behind him: Mbatian
Olkeloki.
Keep going. Do not stop now, do not turn away, or we are finished.
The blockading figure loomed larger and larger, until it blotted out the sky
and sun and sand river altogether. Oak's last words were, The son of a bitch
is as big as a house!
Then it leaped at them, its mane blotting out the horizon, claws reaching for
the hood, jaws agape. A
long black tongue licked out to wipe away the windshield. The glass went
without a sound, not so much shattered as vacuumed away. Oak threw up his
hands to protect his face. As he did so an impossibly bright light filled his
eye all the way back to his brain.
The last voice he heard was Olkeloki's sighing, Ahhh Paasai Leleshwa, and
then, This is my lion...
29
Oak awoke to the sight of flames, but contrary to his first thoughts it wasn't
the world that was on fire.
He tried to sit up, decided it would be better just to lie still for a few
moments. No endless wave of giggling, taunting shetani was trampling him
underfoot. No drooling half-faced abomination was chewing on his feet.
Furthermore, the flames were a reassuring red-orange instead of indigo-blue.
They gave off warmth instead of cold. Smoke rose into a pale-blue sky and the
sun shining down was an old friend newly won.
Eventually he decided to try sitting up. It worked, but it cost him. It felt
like unseen thugs had worked him over from head to toe while he'd lain
unconscious. Every muscle, every tendon and ligament in his body had been
pounded like taffy, until the ache was something solid he felt he could spit
out if only he knew how. His bones had been kneaded like dough.
The fire he'd seen was rising from the corpse of the four-wheeler. It lay
twenty yards away in the middle of the sand river, its windshield gone, the
frame bent and broken, a blackened, burned-out hulk the same color as its
tires. Oak knew exactly how it felt. Those of their supplies that hadn't been
cremated lay scattered all over the river. What had happened? He tried to
remember.
The lion. The great black-maned lion. Olkeloki's lion, the old man had
claimed. And the light, a wonderful, incomparably bright light the color
of the shade of he was damned if he could remember.
Olkeloki had called it something in Maasai.
No fanged colossus bestrode the sand now, and the only light was the gentle
light of the real sun. He was alone on the riverbank with only the smoking
Suzuki, bits and pieces of their personal possessions, and Africa for company.
No shetani. Where were the shetani? In the Out Of.
Whatever that crazy, wonderful old man had done had worked.
Rising painfully, he brushed dirt from his pants. A long groove in the sand
led from the burning skeleton of the four-wheeler to where he was standing. It
occurred to him that his body was the missile which had cut the groove.
Something had thrown him out of the car with tremendous and yet carefully
controlled violence, to fetch him up against the riverbank. Several small
bushes had further cushioned the impact.
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There was something near his left foot. Ignoring the protests of his back, he
bent to pick it up. It was a tan polyurethane bottle with a white cap and a
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familiar legend:
SOLARCANE SUNSCREEN
Too tired to laugh, he tossed it into the shrubbery. A couple of young male
impala were pacing the far bank, nibbling at the fresh green grass that grew
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