man in the world. After Vassily died, the man would be dog-meat!
Rahallah headed down the hall to his room, shutting the door and locking it behind him as prying eyes were everywhere. Dark forces seemed to fill the air like the thick pressure before a rainstorm.
Rahallah, the Son-of-the-Plains-Lion, stripped off the tuxedo, the clothing of the white man, until he stood naked in the center of his luxurious carpeted room. He walked to the closet and pulled out a large burlap bag filled to the bursting point, and extracted the sacred ceremonial clothes one by one and put them on. The leopard-skin loincloth, then the witch doctor’s hat, his father’s legacy, passed through the generations along with all the magical lore of the Imbagi tribe of Kenya. With hands as slow and careful as a bomb expert defusing a thousand-pounder, Rahallah placed the triangular hat made of a lion’s mane on his head. Then he put a necklace made of the lion’s teeth—shining like a hundred magic tusks—around his neck. He took a tiny bag of powder and walked out to his own private terrace where no one could see him and knelt down on the cold stone.
The snow coated him quickly with a sugary frosting, but he felt nothing. Neither pleasure nor pain. He took a pinch of the brown dust from the medicine bag and built a little pile of the crumbling substance just in front of his knees. With a small flint striker he ignited it while murmuring a chant, and the powder caught, burning instantly white hot but without flame. A powerful odor of the African sacred herb filled his nostrils as the smoke wafted up, surrounding his head. He reached into the burlap bag for the final things he needed and pulled out a stick with numerous weathered ivory skulls of small plains creatures hanging down from it, bumping together as he moved. Rahallah raised his arms to the sky, opening them wide, shaking the skull-stick.
“Oh Gods of the Plain, Gods of the Fire,
Hear my voice as Prince of the Lions,
Reach to me all the way from the Serengeti, from the Rift Valley.
Fill the mind of the Grandfather with peace, with freedom.
Only your powers can stop the darkness from falling.
Hear me! Hear me! Hear me! Or I will desert you,
And I am your only believer!
Rahallah didn’t pray for help—he demanded it, shaking the skull-stick at the writhing gray clouds above, which continued to send down curtains of the fluffy thick flakes of snow. The whiteness quickly covered him, so that only his arms and mouth, which continued to move in ritual motion, were visible. Through the long night he vocalized the ancient words, the secret harmonies to call up the gods of Africa, to make them rise right up through the parched earth of the plains, make them fly down from the icy perches of Mt. Kilimanjaro. For the way things were going—no human was going to save the rad-sickened planet. Only the ancient gods, if they cared any longer.
Eight
“I love your nails,” Rona smirked sarcastically from atop her loping ’brid to Kim, who rode just yards away. “You must tell me who does them.”
“No one does them,” the president’s blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter smiled back icily. “They’re beautiful naturally—just like every other part of me. But I hear you’re having a lot of trouble with your own ‘natural’ attributes—things starting to sag and wrinkle. I know a plastic surgeon in a cave outside of Topeka who can do wonders with—well, anyone—even you.”
“How kind,” Rona said, forcing down the bile rising in her stomach once again, repressing the urge to smash the smaller woman in the face with a nose-crushing karate blow. “I see he’s done wonders for you. No beauty, of course—but then look what he had to work with. But cute—yes, quite cute. From a sow’s ear into—”
Rockson rode several yards ahead of the bickering pair, trying to keep his ears locked closed so he wouldn’t have to listen. They had both demanded to be taken with the Doomsday
Rahallah headed down the hall to his room, shutting the door and locking it behind him as prying eyes were everywhere. Dark forces seemed to fill the air like the thick pressure before a rainstorm.
Rahallah, the Son-of-the-Plains-Lion, stripped off the tuxedo, the clothing of the white man, until he stood naked in the center of his luxurious carpeted room. He walked to the closet and pulled out a large burlap bag filled to the bursting point, and extracted the sacred ceremonial clothes one by one and put them on. The leopard-skin loincloth, then the witch doctor’s hat, his father’s legacy, passed through the generations along with all the magical lore of the Imbagi tribe of Kenya. With hands as slow and careful as a bomb expert defusing a thousand-pounder, Rahallah placed the triangular hat made of a lion’s mane on his head. Then he put a necklace made of the lion’s teeth—shining like a hundred magic tusks—around his neck. He took a tiny bag of powder and walked out to his own private terrace where no one could see him and knelt down on the cold stone.
The snow coated him quickly with a sugary frosting, but he felt nothing. Neither pleasure nor pain. He took a pinch of the brown dust from the medicine bag and built a little pile of the crumbling substance just in front of his knees. With a small flint striker he ignited it while murmuring a chant, and the powder caught, burning instantly white hot but without flame. A powerful odor of the African sacred herb filled his nostrils as the smoke wafted up, surrounding his head. He reached into the burlap bag for the final things he needed and pulled out a stick with numerous weathered ivory skulls of small plains creatures hanging down from it, bumping together as he moved. Rahallah raised his arms to the sky, opening them wide, shaking the skull-stick.
“Oh Gods of the Plain, Gods of the Fire,
Hear my voice as Prince of the Lions,
Reach to me all the way from the Serengeti, from the Rift Valley.
Fill the mind of the Grandfather with peace, with freedom.
Only your powers can stop the darkness from falling.
Hear me! Hear me! Hear me! Or I will desert you,
And I am your only believer!
Rahallah didn’t pray for help—he demanded it, shaking the skull-stick at the writhing gray clouds above, which continued to send down curtains of the fluffy thick flakes of snow. The whiteness quickly covered him, so that only his arms and mouth, which continued to move in ritual motion, were visible. Through the long night he vocalized the ancient words, the secret harmonies to call up the gods of Africa, to make them rise right up through the parched earth of the plains, make them fly down from the icy perches of Mt. Kilimanjaro. For the way things were going—no human was going to save the rad-sickened planet. Only the ancient gods, if they cared any longer.
Eight
“I love your nails,” Rona smirked sarcastically from atop her loping ’brid to Kim, who rode just yards away. “You must tell me who does them.”
“No one does them,” the president’s blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter smiled back icily. “They’re beautiful naturally—just like every other part of me. But I hear you’re having a lot of trouble with your own ‘natural’ attributes—things starting to sag and wrinkle. I know a plastic surgeon in a cave outside of Topeka who can do wonders with—well, anyone—even you.”
“How kind,” Rona said, forcing down the bile rising in her stomach once again, repressing the urge to smash the smaller woman in the face with a nose-crushing karate blow. “I see he’s done wonders for you. No beauty, of course—but then look what he had to work with. But cute—yes, quite cute. From a sow’s ear into—”
Rockson rode several yards ahead of the bickering pair, trying to keep his ears locked closed so he wouldn’t have to listen. They had both demanded to be taken with the Doomsday
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