Canto I: The Throne of Ivory and Bone
Listen, children of the red earth, listen close. To the tale of the wind and the silence of the ghost. In the Kingdom of Zanj, where the sun is a hammer, And the markets were once full of joyful clamor, There sat a King named Oba the Cruel. Who treated his people like the stubborn mule.
He was tall as the Iroko, broad as the bull, With a belly that was always, eternally full. He wore a robe of leopard skin, spotted and fine, And drank from a horn of the strongest palm wine. But his heart was a stone in the bottom of a well, A dark, cold place where no mercy could dwell.
He taxed the farmer for the yam in the ground, He taxed the hunter for the game that he found. He taxed the mother for the child at her breast, He gave the weary kingdom no moment of rest. "I am the Lion!" he roared from his stool. "I am the river, the rock, and the rule! The ancestors speak, but they speak through me. I am the root and the branch of the tree."
But the tree was rotten, and the branches were dry. The vultures circled in the white-hot sky. The drums were silent, the dancers were gone. And the village waited for a blood-red dawn. For Oba feared nothing but the loss of his power, And he grew more wicked with every passing hour. He built a wall of skulls to guard his gate, And ruled his kin with the scepter of hate.
Canto II: The Shadow in the Corner
In the shadow of the throne, unseen and small, Stood a man who leaned against the palace wall. His name was Kofi. He was bent and old. He wore no silk, he wore no gold. He was the Keeper of the King's Calabash, Who swept the floor and cleared away the ash.
Kofi was the servant, the silent and low. Who watched the seasons come and go. He saw the King’s rage, he saw the King’s greed, He saw the hunger and the desperate need. But Kofi said nothing. He lowered his eyes. He listened to the King’s boastful lies. He poured the wine with a steady hand, While the famine spread across the land.
The courtiers mocked him. "Look at the slave! He has one foot already in the grave. He has no spirit, he has no pride. He is happy to run, and happy to hide." But they did not know the secret he kept. They did not see the tears that he wept In the dead of night, when the spirits walk. When the drums of the ancestors start to talk.
For Kofi was faithful, not to the King, But to the truth that the spirits sing. He served the Stool, not the man who sat on it. He served the land, and the sun that shone on it. He knew that a King is just a passing breeze, But the people are the roots of the Baobab trees. So he waited. With the patience of stone. For the rot to eat the marrow of the bone.
Canto III: The Silence of the Rains
The Harmattan came, with its dust and its haze. The sun burned the earth for forty days. The river retreated to a trickle of mud. The corn died young, a withered bud. The cattle grew thin, their ribs showing through. The sky turned a pale and a sickly blue.
Oba the King sat sweating and mad. "Where is the rain?" he demanded of the lad. "Why do the clouds refuse to weep? Why do the spirits their water keep?" He summoned the Rainmakers, shaking with fear. He cut off their heads and stuck them on a spear. "If you cannot make rain, you are useless to me! I am the master of the land and the sea!"
But the rain did not come. The dust only grew. And the people whispered what they already knew. The head is rotten, the proverb goes. And when the head rots, the body knows. The King has offended the Earth and the Sky. And that is the reason the children die.
Kofi stood by, with the gourd in his hand. Offering water to the ruler of the land. "My Lord," he whispered, his voice like the sand. "Perhaps the Earth demands not blood, but a hand. A hand open wide, not closed in a fist. Perhaps it is mercy the spirits have missed."
Oba struck him. The gourd hit the floor. "Silence, you dog! Do not speak anymore! Do not preach to the Leopard about his prey. I will find a sacrifice to save the day. Something pure. Something precious and rare. To force the clouds to answer my prayer."
Canto IV: The Oracle of the Cave
The King marched out to the Cave of the Wise. Where the blind Oracle sat with white eyes. She was older than the river, older than the hill. She sat in the darkness, perfectly still. She threw the cowrie shells onto the mat. She listened to the squeak of the hanging bat.
"Speak, old hag!" the King shouted loud. "How do I bring back the thunder cloud? I have slaughtered the goats, I have slaughtered the men. When will the rivers run full again?"
The Oracle laughed, a dry, cracking sound. She traced the pattern of the shells on the ground. "The spirits are angry, O King of the Beast. They do not want famine, they do not want feast. They want the thing that you love the most. Or you will become nothing but a ghost."
"What I love most?" The King thought of his gold. He thought of the stories of glory told. He thought of his wives, he thought of his crown. He thought of his power, his fearsome renown. "I love myself!" he thought with a start. "I love the beating of my own black heart."
But he could not give that. He would not die. He looked at the Oracle with a cunning eye. "I love my servant," the King lied then. "Kofi, the most faithful of all my men. He is my shadow, my right hand, my breath. I will offer him up to the jaws of death."
The Oracle smiled, for she saw the lie. She saw the doom in the King's dark eye. "So be it," she said. "If the sacrifice is true. The rain will return before the moon is new. Take him to the Forest of No Return. Leave him there, and watch the seasons turn."
Canto V: The Walk to the Forest
The guards seized Kofi in the dead of the night. They dragged him away by the torch's light. They bound his hands with a rope of vine. He did not struggle. He did not whine. He looked at the King with a sorrowful face. Full of a strange and a quiet grace.
"Why, my master?" was all he asked. "For forty years I have been tasked With serving your house, with keeping your floor. Why do you cast me out of the door?"
"It is for the rain," the King declared. "You are the price that must be spared. You are the faithful, the beloved one. Your death will bring back the hidden sun."
Kofi looked up at the starless sky. He knew the King spoke a desperate lie. But he walked to the forest, his head held high. He did not curse, and he did not cry. "If my blood brings water," Kofi said low. "Then I am willing and ready to go. For the village is thirsty, the children are weak. I will go to the ancestors, and I will speak."
They left him there, where the shadows are deep. Where the pythons glide and the leopards creep. They left him bound to a Mahogany tree. And Oba returned to his revelry.
Canto VI: The Judgment of the Wild
The forest was silent. The forest was black. There was no path forward, and no path back. Kofi stood tied, with the night all around. He heard the slither upon the ground. He heard the breathing of beasts in the dark. He waited for the bite, he waited for the mark.
A Lion stepped out, with a mane of gold. A creature of legends, massive and old. It sniffed at the man tied up to the wood. It smelled the spirit that was humble and good. It smelled no fear, it smelled no hate. It smelled a soul that accepted its fate.
The Lion did not bite. It raised a great paw. And with a swipe of a razor claw, It cut the vines that bound Kofi’s hand. It roared a challenge across the land. For the beasts of the wild know the law of the earth. They judge a man by his inner worth.
Kofi fell down on his knees in the moss. He realized his life was not a loss. The spirits were watching. The ancestors knew. The judgment was coming, and it was due.
He found a spring in the roots of the tree. Water that flowed, cool and free. He drank his fill, and he washed his face. He found a peace in that dangerous place. He lived on berries, he slept in the fern. While back in the city, the sun continued to burn.
Canto VII: The Fall of the Ivory Tower
In the palace, the King waited for rain. But the sky remained blue, full of disdain. The heat grew worse. The walls began to crack. The King felt the thirst of the desert attack. His tongue swelled up. His eyes went red. "Where is the water?" he screamed from his bed.
The Oracle’s words echoed in his ear. The thing you love most. The meaning was clear. He didn't love Kofi. He loved his own pride. He loved the greed that he kept inside. The sacrifice failed because it was a lie. And now the King was destined to die.
The people rose up, a wave of despair. They stormed the gates, they filled the square. They found the King on his throne of bone. Dying of thirst, and utterly alone. His gold could not buy him a drop of the wet. He was caught in his own unbreakable net.
Then, from the forest, a figure appeared. A man with a wild and a tangled beard. He carried a gourd, dripping and cool. He walked through the crowd, past the empty pool. It was Kofi. The ghost. The sacrifice. Returned from the dead, having paid the price.
He walked to the King, who was gasping for breath. Who looked in the face of a dusty death. Kofi held out the gourd to his lip. He let the King take a tiny sip. Mercy. In the face of the cruel. The final act of the Golden Rule.
Oba looked up with a tear in his eye. "You live?" he whispered. "I sent you to die." "Faith does not die," Kofi replied. "It flows like the river, deep and wide. You tried to rule with a fist of stone. But a man cannot stand on the earth alone."
The King passed away as the thunder rolled. More precious to them than the ivory or gold. The sky turned black. The lightning flashed. The drought was broken. The old world crashed.
The rain came down. It washed the street. It cooled the burning, blistering heat. The people danced in the mud and the mire. They lit a new and a holy fire.
They turned to Kofi. "Be our King! You are the one that the spirits bring!" But Kofi smiled, and he shook his head. "The King is the servant," is what he said. "I will keep the gourd. I will sweep the floor. I will guard the wisdom behind the door. Choose a leader who knows how to bend. For the reign of the Leopard has come to an end."
So listen, children, to the drums in the night. Do not be blinded by power and might. For the wicked may rise like the smoke in the air. But the faithful endure, like the earth, everywhere.
Here ends the Tale of the Leopard and the Gourd.
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