Muezzinland by Stephen Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

New-Oriental was as formal as a courtier's.
    The papyrus-shrouded riverbanks slipped by to the sound of a chugging solar engine, but almost immediately there was trouble. One of the passengers began to suffer a fit. Her friend laid her down on the deck, where she twitched and swallowed convulsively. Nshalla was shocked when the image of the unfortunate woman began to oscillate between two figures, her normal self, and a darker, more primeval self. The changes were instantaneous, like a flickering fluorescent lamp.
    The crew were afraid, shrinking back and bringing forth wooden charms against the evil eye. Gmoulaye ran off with other passengers, but Nshalla stood still, Captain Nfor nearby. At length the fit subsided.
    The woman's friend bowed to the captain and said, "My apologies. She suffers from epilepsy. It is as if the neuro-electrical storms in her brain are switching lobes on and off. What you saw were her real self-image and a baser self-image, brought out by the aether. We think it relates to a childish self because the epilepsy began when she was seven."
    Captain Nfor nodded. "I have seen something similar," he said. "Once I was commanded to take a youth upriver by his parents, who were chiefs in an Azaraland village. The lad had been treated for neurotic paranoia by the cutting of the corpus callosum. The two halves of his brain separated, he developed two self images that were transmitted to the biograin hierarchies of all who saw him. I recall them vividly. One was a limp youth, artistic and damp of skin. The other was rough, a grainy image like that of a low resolution screen, dark and ugly. The boy's identity was whole and he saw himself as a single person, but depending upon his brain mode two aspects were transmitted."
    Nshalla approached the captain, saying, "Were the lad's parents warm and loving, or did they ignore him?"
    "I do not know," Captain Nfor replied.
    Nshalla frowned. "I'm looking for my sister. Our mother was distant and cold, and bad to us, and our father we hardly knew. He was from a remote European land. Have there been any reports of shapeshifters in this part of the world?"
    Captain Nfor seemed intrigued. He took a hash cake from his pocket and began chewing. "Why do you ask?"
    "I know a lot about the aether. My sister was trained from an early age to be like her mother. She's an heir, you know. Now she's run off, and I expect her sense of who she is has gone haywire. Her identity crisis will be transmitted by the aether."
    "I see, I see," Captain Nfor said, nodding. "Many of the repressed parts of her personality will surface now she is free of her mother. Did she have a cultural role?"
    Nshalla gave a sad smile. "She would've become an Empress."
    He seemed taken aback. "I thought I detected a foreign accent. You are from far off."
    "Ghana."
    Captain Nfor took her by the shoulder and led her down the side of the riverboat. "We will look after you and your friend," he said in a fatherly voice. "If there is any news to be had from the bush we will certainly pass it on."
    Nshalla thanked him, then departed to find Gmoulaye and Msavitar. The rest of the day passed peacefully enough. As dusk fell they heard from both riverbanks the sounds of drumming, while occasionally the still evening air was split by the noise of screeching birds. Nshalla slept fitfully under her dusty nets.
    Next day they entered Volta Blanc. As noon approached most of the other passengers retired to their cabins to escape the heat, and from one end of the ship came the sound of choral singing—' Ye Ke Ye Ke!' —underpinned by djembes, talking drums, cass cass and calimba. Nshalla and Gmoulaye donned floppy hats and sat at the stern of the boat with Captain Nfor, curious to see how the Volta Blanc men would react to their passage.
    "Will they fire arrows at us for being women?" Nshalla asked him.
    "No. To them you are one with the water. Deep in their subconscious minds they identify water with the eternal mother. They