[b]Bapentui City[/b]

The wooden whistling of the pan flute ebbed and rose in the afternoon garden air. Surrounded by cascading stone walls where vines fell from planters high above like a green waterfall a pair of Satyrs sat by, dressed in light and thin garden robes, sleeves cut clean off freeing their arms to the pleasant afternoon sun. Wood beads wrapped around the waste of the younger, holding to his hip a long red shawl that hung at his side a small curved dagger. Brilliant blue embroidery ran intricate geometric and symmetrical designs in the thin fabric of his robe. Hugged in his lap a long stringed instrument lay, its body a drum of bleached hardened leather, it sung in a wavering droning note at each note plucked from its two-string neck. The gabr, a simple if popular instrument among all Satyr.

His companion, an elderly individual with long thick dreadlocks that dropped to his feet sat nearby. His dry parched lips blew across the pipes of his flute, whistling in creative and improvised creation with the gabr. His old eyes rested closed as he played his song. His scrawny legs bobbing to each suggestion of a beat. Being lesser, he wore a much simpler set of dress, but similar to that of his companion. A band of painted sticks wrapped in cotton twine held back the heavy mane of silver rope that framed his head from falling into his head.

The two sat on a pair of stone-carved benches. The stone was as pink as grapefruit, and warmed by the kiss of the sun. Grass grew from the feet in thick tufts, and large palmy fronds of surrounding palms rose up alongside, circling an inner grove amid the stone walls of one of many gardens in the palace. A nest of birds sat in the top of a twisting and out-reaching spindly tree, speckling the grass and stepping stones with dazzled speckled light, the family of birds chirped out of tune. But to the two musicians it was as if they were attempting to join their song.

The notes of the improvisation rose and fell to the flow of the distant sighing and wavering cry of the gabr, and the crystal sharpness of the pan flute. Like the wind it brushed through the air. Moving slow and cold. Then warm and fast. The tempo moved at not defined pace. Merely at the rhythm dictated by the player's own hearts, finding common timing at the plucking and the whistling of a note.

There came a sharp whistle, followed by a trailing falling through the notes as the old satyr blew onto his flute one final time. Signaling his retirement from the peace. In subtle time the younger did the same. The sharp twang of the gabr falling silent. A brief moment of silence passed filled only by the birds as the strung instrument was adjusted in the youth's lap.

“Music to the Ubangandai of the Buwan peninsula is considered such a fact of life that they fight war by it.” the old satyr said, smiling, “They do not raise weapons against themselves or their neighbors. Instead when they seek battle against themselves they strike up their drums, and sweep into their arms every instrument possible and meet the other tribe in the grasslands. Then they play music, from sunup to sundown. The tribe to have a stallion of their own still standing when the final note is struck has settled the dispute as the victor.

“Afterwards they toast themselves and retire home. They are patrons to Muvadi Moa.” the elder said with a dry smile. It told much about him. The days he had traveled and the sands he had tasted. His eyes had a clear gem-like shine to them as well. They did not speak warmly of combat, but instead sung fondly for experiences well seen. In one look, even the youngest knew he weathered hot summers and cold winters among amazing realms and creatures.

“Who enforces the contest though?” the young one asked. He was princely. A curly head of hair crowned him so tight it was a uniform cap of fine wool. A stout black afro black as the darkest night sky, “I mean, someone must think song is not enough and attack.”

“That would be the fair assumption, but in my time among the Ubangandai from the clans of the Moii-Ubangandi to the Eo-Ubangandi I have never seen anyone take righteous offense for loosing. They recognize the honor in simply having competed, toast to a dispute well settled, and praise the Moa. It was said to me when I asked that they believe Muvadi Moa will strike them deaf and mute, incapable of partaking in the world's sounds and contributing new ones if they so terribly breach her contract.”

“Are the Moa that willing?”

“Ushandi Yesobi!” the old one laughed, “Do you doubt Cele Moa's involvement in the world by continuing to be our life giving sun?” he chuckled, his deep tar-pitch face beaming red as he smiled. Even his deep brown eyes seemed to laugh. Not hauntingly, dismissively, or as a bully. But as a dear old man that has heard a good joke.

“No, I don't. But I haven't heard of contracts on entire tribes.”

“The Moa work strangely, as do their creation.” the old one said, “I briefly traveled through the court of the far-southern kingdoms of the Hayeckapuntuzeidi on the southern mountainous shores of the Sea of Boa. There were the sun is the driest, and the mountains most stained by Cele's embracing heat the cleft-hoofted worship not the great Moa, or at least Moa as we are familiar. But beings of metal and steam and fire. They call their heavenly king Chinakanmetaghakanmard. His temples presided over by the brassen depicition of their Moa. He who looks nothing like their horned visage.”

“How could the Moa be made of metal though if they are the stars, Afurendi?” Ushandi asked, shifting on his bench. He stretched out his silver legs as he leaned against the arm of the granite bench, wrapping his arms around his gabr.

Ushandi was youngest save to only Rwan. By no means strongly built, he was capable. Though intelligent, he was hardly as interested in the Moa in the same way his younger brother had become. He was worldly. He wanted to see and know the world beyond the walls of Bapentui. If he could he would have preferred to be of the nomadic Overroomi, like Afurendi.

“We are the amalgamation of gods and bambezi.” Afurendi reminded, “I don't think we should rule out one's Moa being any different than the other. Besides, to many tribes it'd be offensive.”

“Well, still. It seems silly. Why do the bambezi worship a monkey king? Why not the natural horse or zebra? Or the goat?”

“Why is the Bodye seemingly deaf to our patronage?” replied Afurendi, “Why do the Hayeckapuntuzeidi not worship the goat instead of brass and iron, as you suggest we do the zebra? It is the way things are. Do you wish Rwan were here?” he teased.

“No, we'd be here all afternoon talking about Moa and the Bodye.” Ushandi snickered, “All respect, but I don't think Cele Moa wants us to go on too much on the color and size of her glorious sunbutt.”

“A fair initiative. So whose glorious sunbutt do we discuss?”

Ushandi held silent to consider. Affurendi slide his flute to the side on the bench, then stretched his knuckles.

“Tell me more about music.” Ushandi said, “Who plays what, and where?” he asked.

“Ah, now that's a fine non-sunbutt topic.” Affurendi laughed, “On leaving the courts of the Hayeckapuntuzeidi I spent a great deal of time in the halls of the kings of the Ethozepied. A fine powerful tribe, to be sure.

“There, they had a instrument very much like the gabr. But wide, bearing seven strings and not upwards to three like we have. All are strung to an inwardly curving bow. They hold the instrument by a metal plate on the back, and when plucked they drum against its body. It's such a strange magnificent sound, somewhere along the lines of a antelope running across the ground and the song of the gabr.

“I have known musicians in the courts of those kings to play the instrument with a bow too. One from their very hunting arsenal or from war. It created such long notes, like a curious wailing.

“And very earlier I traveled as a youth along the southern shores of furthest tip of the Cape Hourn. The Hwazulu who lived there played a bag of flutes there. In one hand they would coax the sing-song from their pipes, or choke it. And with another the other they would make the instruments lung draw and expel air.

“The most magnificent players among the Hwazulu tribes could produce notes so eerily akin to the voice of man or satyr alike a distant listener may confuse it for a distressed chanter. According to their legend, their instrument could speak to their ancestors and they used it to convey prayers to their ghosts, asking for alms, blessings, and every other manner with the exception of willing more death. For that they had drums.

“Music was big to the Hwazulu but not so much as the Ubangandai as I later learned.”

“In comparison to here, they seem by far more interesting.” Ushandi commented melancholicly.

“I would not go far as to suggest that.” Affurendi laughed, “Ero, Bunei, Bugan, Szi. I have found all the tribes that compose your father's kingdom are similar in that music in no small part of their life, as any other satyr tribe or clan from here to the Hourn in the south. It's the placement in all the tribe's life and its use that matters. And for one who has lived so long within it it would be understandable that it's gone unnoticed. A personal blindness, I must say.

“These tribes, united under one kabaka and seusebi in your people's concepts of one-ness – Afarid – all have come to share the same style of music in their life. Music to you is not for war, or for ritual contact of the dead. Nor impressing on nobles and achieving high-status as an individual while boosting the prestige of a kabaka or king.

“Very, I would go so far as to suggest music permeates the Afarid tribes as it does the Ubangandai. Your warriors may not be judged by the songs they can play. But nearly every individual I have met can play an instrument or is willing to sing a song. The breadth and length of their library is astounding, even to an Overroomi with as extensive a catalog of songs we have.

“But it is not for war or for death your people sing. It is celebration. In reverence for Cele Moa in particular you make Muvadi Moa happy by engaging in all songs of celebration. As you yourself engage in, you partake in celebration of life and existence on a nightly basis. Your entire life is dictated by songs of joy. Your poetry a deceleration to the Moa, telling them their creation is most wonderful and exciting; for all its flaws and dangers you find reason to praise imperfection.

“The Hwazulu and the Ethozepied would become quiet stolen back if they happened across the broad scope of your music. To them, their life-style is the bland and the normal. But to you, you are the exotic to them. I wouldn't be so quick to judge your own people when you have not seen others. If you get the chance, I would encourage you travel as an adventurer. See other peoples so when you return you can appreciate the qualities of your own kin.”

“And what of your kin, the Overroomi?” asked Ushandi, “What music do you have?”

“Our people are travelers.” Affurendi said, “I do not know how many months or years it has been since I have seen another one of my brothers. So I would not know all the songs my brethren know as they would not me.

“But as I was taught when but a foal, our songs are a prayer to the road ahead that when we walk it we are not stolen. That we can walk through the lands of the sons of Moiniki and not be slain. That we will see the lion's jaws and not be caught. Or if we must fail that we die quick.

“When last I sung to the road we must do so loud, facing into the wind. Declaring to the Moa our hopes, or even seeking to summon one of our to give us company. A solitary life is not one for a satyr. And many have called us hermits. So perhaps we travel and sing for a religious purpose as much as we are born into it.”

“Would there be good reason for me to travel with you when you next leave?” the prince asked.

“I doubt it. You have your place here, no one will want you to leave. I fear Yesobi would have me hunted if it were suggested I had allowed you to come with me. I can not have the persecution after me; I've had enough.”

“So do your people ever get tired then?”

Affurendi had heard that question many times, and he greeted it with a pensive smile. “Sometimes.” he said softly, “I think it is perhaps the reason I have stayed for as long as I have. We often wonder how long it'll be until we find the ground to which we will root ourselves. And in my age I wonder if I had found that in your father's court.

There was a moment of silence as they too sat. Not speaking, thinking. “Have you heard the song of Korwanji bird?” Affurendi asked.

“I haven't.” Ushandi said.

“I will need to see if I can locate one for you.” the old satyr said, “In my experience their song is most unique. Like a mocking bird they can mimic the sounds of nearly everything they hear. But unlike the mocking bird much more clearly. And their feathers are very colorful.

“They're highly praised by the Ethozepied. And I have seen them winter at Kilaro. When the time is right I might have to go and catch you one.”

“Sounds interesting.” Ushandi commented, unenthusiastic.

Silence fell on them again. Shuffling on the bench Affurendi sat up, gathering his flute in his hands. “Well my prince,” he said, “it was an honor playing again.”

“As to you.” Ushandi replied. Smiling as he sat up, he turned to the nearby hall. From within the familiar clop of hooves echoed. Ticking out from the stony hall. The two watched, bearing no enthusiasm for their potential guests. But as he rounded the corner both stood straight. Ushandi even rose from the bench as he stood to bow to his father.

“Bui Yesobi.” Affurendi said, bowing low. His hands wrapped around his waist, “It's an honor.”

“Ushandi, Affurendi.” the kabaka said, bowing in turn to them. His face looked tired and his gaze distant. There was a stress hidden in his voice. “Ushandi, I have reason to speak with Affurendi. I hope I am not intruding on anything.” he added.

“No, we were just finishing.” Affurendi said, “Your son gets better on the gabr every time we meet.”

Yesobi nodded and smiled. Taking wide steps the traveler made a quick canter for the king. “What is it you need?” he asked, looking the king in the eyes. His gaze sharp and wishing, seeking to know.

“Walk with me.” Yesobi said, turning back down the corridor.

“As you wish.” nodded Affurendi.

Together they turned from the courtyard garden and into the interior corridors. Their hoof falls echoing off the stone walls and wooden ceiling. Not a word passed from the Kabaka's lips as they strolled. His face remained stoic and straight.

“I need your assistance.” he said finally as they turned a corner.

“What for?” the Overroomi asked.

“I didn't want to say it in the presence of Ushandi, I didn't want to burden him. But something's afoot.” the war-chief said, “I heard from my wife that someone tried to kill her when she was presiding over the trial for murder between two tribes.”

“I'm sorry to hear.” said Affurendi, shocked, “Is everything alright?”

“Ashra is fine. But they managed to take something from me.” Yesobi continued, his gaze still glued ahead. He did not look the nomad in the eyes as they walked, “In the attack against her chief Mami of the Bugan is suspected to have kidnapped Rwan. Niyo is in pursuit to get him back. I want to know why.”

“Rwan?” Affurendi gasped, “Why would he be taken. He's a good colt.”

“We think someone took advantage of the situation.” Yesobi sighed, “Ashra is putting together the means to carry out a trial here. But we can't finish it until we have evidence to present before the chief and Mami himself.

“I no doubt Niyo will return with Rwan and him in tow. But as it goes we need testimonies, evidence.”

“Understandable.”

“You still have connections with the Bugan?” Yesobi asked.

“Yes, bui.”

“I want you to use them.” Yesobi said, stopped and turning to him. His aged and wrinkled face carved deep by the light of oil lanterns. The shadows and lights that danced in the firelight burned the wrinkles and the pits of his old face deeper. He was an old elephant, enraged and ancient. Made only more so by the firelight. “I want you to find who, why, and what was done to stage this dishonor.”

Affurendi nodded, “I understand. When do you wish me to go?”

“Ideally as soon as you can.”

“I can leave tonight.”

“Then do so. And return when you have the information.”

“As you wish.”