Shadow of Death

Chapter 20: The Nile

The old king emerged from a side door and slowly shuffled across a tiled walkway to where Loki sat on a bench. The king lifted one of his hands and the Dora Milaje fell back, sinking into the shadows to give their monarch the space he desired. He ran his hands through his rough, white beard and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"Sawa, now prince, come take a walk with me," T'Chaka said, without meeting Loki's gaze once. Loki nearly refused simply to prove that he could-then thought the better of it -and he fell into step beside the king.

T'Chaka led him to where the tiled pathway brought them through a brilliantly colored tropical garden brimming with birds as colorful as the flowers. Orange and yellow flame lilies grew alongside white orchids and bright yellow tunguja flowers crept up a nearby wall lattice, filling the space with their sweet fragrance. A small stream gurgled through the center of the garden and fell in a small waterfall into a pond surrounded by a courtyard and benches. T'Chaka motioned for him to sit. T'Chaka carefully organized his long, dark blue robe and sat down beside him.

From their seats, they could look back onto the sand-colored palace. It did not tower over Birnin Zana but instead grew out of the city, interwoven within the fabric of the rest of the tall urban structures alongside the river. T'Chaka let the quiet silence grow before he addressed Loki.

"Tell me, prince, does Asgard host many dignitaries from other realms?"

"On occasion."

"Is there an expected code of conduct for how to show honor to your royal family and your great city?"

Loki rose one eyebrow but did not respond. He did not need to. He waited for T'Chaka to continue in his mild, calm manner.

"Birnin Zana is not Nairobi or New York or Beijing. We survive because our walls are tall and our shields thick. We allow few visitors and none which look like you. When my people see you, they will fear you because they will see you through the lens of our history. Men who looked like you came here to conquer and to steal. We have strict measures in place to keep outsiders out of our country and for you to appear in their midst, unaccompanied by a representative of the crown, it is enough to stir them into a frenzy of fear and panic.

"If you had stayed in the market for another fifteen minutes, the crowd would have turned into a mob and they would have sought to burn you alive. I do not doubt that you can defend yourself, however your defense would have cost the lives of many of my people and would only have increased their fear.

"Already, I will need to dispense three communication teams to represent the Golden Tribe to the people and answer their questions and quell their fears in response to your actions. It will take the majority of the day to sort this out and let the people know that all is well. Yet, if you walked through the marketplace accompanied by a representative of the Golden Tribe, they would merely have stared and whispered.

"Now, allow me to be clearer. As a representative of one of our oldest allies, you have been granted welcome here, however you must give us the honor due to us. You are welcome to wander the palace grounds and the palace itself, but you will not go into the city or surrounding countryside unaccompanied.

"In addition, you will seek out Dr. Njeri and allow her to do her job. She is one of the few outsiders that is permitted in Wakanda and she was specifically sought out because she is highly skilled. She will inform you of our ways so you do not learn them by trial and error. I prefer to spend my time on other matters instead of tending to such avoidable messes."

T'Chaka fell into silence. Loki could not construct a response and so joined in the silence of the king. T'Chaka stared at Loki with a look of such solemnity that Loki dropped his eyes to the flowers growing beneath his feet. T'Chaka heaved a sigh and began to speak again, his voice still low and full of the cadences of a story-teller.

"Sir Winston Churchill, who would later become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, came to visit our neighboring country of Uganda over a hundred years ago. The country greatly impressed him-the beauty of the people, the land, the life within. When he came to the birthplace of the Nile, the greatest of rivers, he first spoke of its might and glory and then in the next breath, his dreams to 'harness the whole river' and build a dam at the source. He saw the mighty rapids and falls and determined to conquer them, tame them, harness them.

"He was not alone. During the last 130 years, this entire continent was 'owned' by outsiders, save for Ethiopia and Wakanda. Outsiders came and conquered our highest peaks with their flags and their names. They redrew our borders with their guns and their maps. They conquered our people with their money and their bullets. The taller the mountain, the more desirable the ascent. The stronger the people, the more glorious their defeat. The more powerful the river, the greater the desire to dam its torrents, to claim and control its rapids.

"The outsiders called this the 'dark continent.' We were the nameless, faceless void upon which they could inscribe their own names, their own stories, forge their own fortunes, and recreate a world in their own image and for their own glory. The peoples they found, they simply erased and wrote a new story over what already existed, but that they could not, or chose not to, see."

T'Chaka paused again and then faced Loki. He placed a hand on Loki's shoulder and his voice grew even softer, almost weary.

"Prince Loki of Asgard, the words you spoke during your speech in Germany are a much too common refrain to Wakanda and our neighbors. We have been told to kneel, to be ruled, that we crave subjugation, that it is our natural state. Because of the continent which birthed us, outsiders have told us for generations that we are made to be ruled-that it is our birthright, no matter how far from our homeland our feet take us.

"If you are here to conquer Wakanda, I do not doubt you would succeed. Our secrecy is our one defense and, as you are here, it is no longer protecting us from your designs. So, I ask you now, are you Churchill or are you the Nile? Do you wish to dam our rivers and tame our torrents or do you fear being tamed and dammed and utilized for the whims of another?"

T'Chaka's brown eyes sought his face and carefully measured his reaction. Loki fought to ensure he allowed none. Instead, he gave a short nod of his head.

"I will seek out your Dr. Njeri," Loki finally said, fully aware it was not the complete response the king desired, but unwilling to accede to more.

"It is good," T'Chaka said. "I have spoken. I will leave you now."

The king rose from the bench, smoothed out the back of his knee-length robe, and motioned with one hand. Four Dora Milaje soldiers materialized out of the shadows. He gave them a nod and they escorted him down the tiled pathway back to the palace.

oooooooooooooooooo

Shuri stood before a series of screens in her lab and carefully threaded her eyes through a new stream of data from their latest test with the new telescope adjustments. The Asgardian prince, while as prickly as the hedgehog living in the palace gardens, had given her a wealth of information during his last few visits. This opened doors to completely new research for her and Jane, much to their excitment. The rows of orange numbers continued to flow past her. Shuri bit her lip and scrawled a few notes on her arm. Her arm filled up and she needed more space. So, she swung around to find a digital tablet to write on instead.

As she looked for her tablet, she noticed a little bundle of orange push its way through a door. Goose traipsed into the lab like it were the little furry emperor of the space. It paused to wash its haunches and then gracefully leapt from a book shelf onto the white lab table. Shuri, distracted from her search, came to scratch the soft cheek of the cat. It rewarded her with a loud purr and rubbed itself against her hand in appreciation.

"Here, paka," she said and pulled out a dried fish she had brought from the kitchen. Goose happily ate the little fish and looked at her so imploringly she wished she had snuck a few more into her bag.

"Hakuna, paka. Tosha."

The cat coughed slightly before stretching out its limbs with a lazy yawn. Then Goose coughed again, harder this time, followed by a gagging and hacking sound.

"Eeee, eee, eee! Hapana, paka! Not a hairball…on my lab table. Paka enda!" she cried and tried to push the cat off the table. Before she could, the cat's mouth opened and out came an elongated silvery metal object which, according to all the laws of physics, should not have been able to come out of that cat.

She wrinkled her face in disgust as she caught sight of the shapely saliva streaming off it and all over her table. Goose jumped off, rubbed against her ankle, and disappeared down the hall without another look back.

"Nini?" she asked. She grabbed a rag from another table and came to investigate. She mopped up some of the mess along the dark ridges of the handle of what appeared to be an intricately decorated metal hammer. She ran her finger along the design carved into each side of its head and stared.

"How did you fit inside a cat?" she asked herself, in a loud whisper. "And where did you come from?"

She knew how she could find a few answers to her questions. Her scanner, the good one, was still in her room where she left off running tests on the Asgardian box and cloth. Shuri picked the hammer up in one hand and took it to the sink to wash if off. Then she left it on the countertop to dry as she made a quick trip to her room.

Oooooooooo

Loki, in honor of his oath to the king, set out to find Dr. Njeri as soon as he finished his meal. A King's Guard in the kitchens directed him to the lab where Dr. Njeri was last seen. As he entered, he did not find Dr. Njeri, but he did find Shuri and Jane busily employed in Shuri's favored wing. He was about to inquire into their knowledge of the doctor's whereabouts, when he stopped and stood in shock at the scene he saw before him.

Shuri flitted about Jane with a black box in her hands. The box blinked with different colored lights and buttons. She ran the device up and down over a silver, metallic object that Jane held carefully in her hand and rotated in a circle whenever Shuri came to the edge of it. So engrossed in their work, both remained oblivious to his entrance.

"What are you doing?" Loki asked, more harshly than he meant to.

Both women jumped and turned to face him with slightly guilty expressions on their faces.

"Running tests," Shuri said, her expression morphing into feigned innocence.

"Of course. The pair of you do little other than run tests. What, pray tell, are you running tests on?"

Jane's face only grew redder, like a child caught stealing tarts.

"This hammer," Shuri said, while her keen eyes fixed on him with too much calculation. "Goose spit it out on my lab table earlier today."

"Is it Thor's?" Jane asked. "I thought it looked a lot like his…but I only saw it that once and it wasn't for very long."

Loki's eyes shifted back to the silver object which remained…not on the lab table across the room, but in Jane's hands…held upright and into the air. Loki scoffed inwardly at himself for his momentary panic.

It couldn't be Mjolnir…

He walked closer to inspect and his eyes grew wide as he recognized the runes and the distinctive carvings of Thor's hammer. He could feel the familiar hum of power emanate off its surface.

Jane, noticing his reaction, stood up and began to apologize. "We didn't mean to be disrespectful to his memory or sacrilegious to the hammer or anything. It just came out of a cat and we were trying to figure out how and why. You can have it back now," she said and held out the hammer for him to take.

"The…you…" Loki said, uncharacteristically stammering. He stared at the hammer and then at Jane, still lost as to what exactly was happening. "Goose had Mjolnir?"

Shuri nodded. "I saw the hammer come out of the cat's mouth. Haiwezekani, but there it is."

"The flerkin…it isn't a cat," Loki said, half-distracted and not even paying attention to what he was saying.

"Aye, bwana. I may believe you now. This alien paka-what you call it? I do not think I can even pronounce that-'flah-ken'…'frawky'…it is too too hard," Shuri said as she tripped over the word. She stopped struggling and gave a wide-eyed look at her hands. "Engoja kidogo, will I acquire some exotic alien disease from the…creature's….saliva? I washed the hammer and my hands off with soap and hot water, but I don't want to lose my hand or find my skin has fallen off tomorrow."

"You…no. The greatest dangers posed by a flerkin are their tentacles and their ability to swallow things into dimensional pockets," he said. "Wait-you washed the hammer?"

"Indio. Tentacles? Dimensional pockets? I think you need to explain that kidogo, bwana."

Loki ignored her and began pacing the room.

"You washed it on the table?"

"No. In the sink. There was too too much saliva and little pieces of hair and other foreign matter I'd rather not think about stuck to the hammer. It should be very clean now."

"You simply walked over and picked it up?" Loki said, incredulousness marring his voice.

"Indio," Shuri said with a nod and a slight shrug.

Loki let out a huff of exasperation. Without another word, he turned and left the room. Shuri met Jane's questioning gaze with one of her own.

"What was that about?" Jane asked.

"Sijui…I do not know," Shuri said.

Both women waited for a few minutes and watched the door. When Loki failed to reemerge, they turned back to the hammer and Shuri's scanner.

"The tests are complete. Here!"

Shuri projected the rows of data onto the nearest screen and both women huddled around it with greedy expressions on their faces.

"Wow! Look at the energy readings coming off that thing!" Jane said.

"It is very…." Shuri began but her reply was interrupted by Loki's sudden reappearance. He swept back into the room and peered at both women, as if a general commanding his troops.

"Jane," he said, pointing towards her.

"Yeah?"

"Pick up Mjolnir."

"Ok."

She walked over to the hammer and lifted it. While her thin arms showed the strain of its weight, she easily hefted it to her will.

"Princess, will you also?"

"Sawa," Shuri said. She walked over and picked up the hammer and carried it to Loki. "Bwana, shika."

"No. I thank you. Place it down where you had it again," he said. He would not test this in front of an audience. Without a word, he turned and left the room again.

He returned again at half past midnight. He waited until he saw the women had finally abandoned their work and gone to bed. He walked over to the hammer and felt the familiar leather of its handle in his own hand. He closed his eyes and heaved.

Nothing happened. The hammer stayed rooted on the shelf and failed to budge in his grasp. He tried again, but it was just as it had been in New Mexico. Immovable. Solid. Condescending. He gritted his teeth and fled the room again.

He would not speak to the cursed hammer again this night (despite how he had wished to the last few nights). He would, however, kick the blasted flerkin the next time he came across the miserable excuse for a creature.

Ooooooooo

Author's (super nerdy) notes:

Goose: I refer to Goose as an "it" because Goose is not a cat and is not a mammal of Earth-maybe flerkins follow different reproductive patterns? Undeveloped thought…so…Goose will remain an "it". ;)

Sir Winston Churchill and the Nile-he wrote about this in his book "My African Journey," published in 1908. I came across the story in another book-Inside Africa by John Gunther Harper. It's a fascinating old book that came from a library dumpster. Written in 1953 by an American travel writer, he describes the conditions in colonial Africa during this particular era. What an era to write in! They still have the idealism and optimism of the colonial "civilizing" projects, but with the burgeoning sparks for independence smoldering across the continent.

Dark continent: Jean and John Comaroff's article "Africa Observed: Discourses of the Imperial Imagination" is my favorite exploration of European ideas of Africa as the "dark continent" and the implications this had for the colonial enterprise and the development of scientific racism. They say, "In investigating the savage, the West set up a mirror in which it might find a tangible, if inverted, self-image." In other words, Africa's creation in the European imagination is not a reflection of what is actually there, but what Europeans wish to see in order to see themselves as more superior. It's a representation not based on actuality but on ignorance and ethnocentrism.

I should probably note that in this particular manifestation of the fictional country of Wakanda, my goal is not to create a "perfect" utopian African nation that has it's act all together, but to create a picture of what the country would look like based on the conditions presented in the MCU, mainly, what a super technologically advanced, secretive, and uncolonized central African country looks like. Thus-it should be flawed (since all nations/cultures are flawed in some way or another) and it should not be the mirror image of the Western world (trying to avoid the tropes of the "noble savage" or "orientalism"…if it's possible to fully avoid such things).

Golden Tribe: the concept of tribe I will utilize for Wakanda is not the ethnicity-based definition as was perpetuated by the colonial enterprise and the British policy of indirect rule (which created tribes in some areas which formerly did not have them) and created a more racial and unchanging tenor to people groups which previously were much more fluid and based on economic or political belonging. Thus, in this particular exploration of the fictional country of Wakanda, I will base the five "tribes" (as granted us by the comics) on the concept of tribe as an economic situation. (Example: pre-Belgian Rwanda had the agrarian Hutu and the pastoralist Tutsis. The "tribes" were based on class and economic activity until the Belgians formalized it and made it based on birth and racial characteristics such as nose size, skin color, etc.) The tribes in Wakanda will be more fluid and less based on ancestry and language and more on class and position within the economic/political system. (Aidan Southhall's Illusion of Tribe gives a great exploration of the creation of tribalism in E. Africa….for anyone who is a nerd like me and likes reading this kind of thing). ;)

I think I've figured out how to explain my use of Kiswahili in this story as the primary language that is more acceptable than "it's closer than Xhosa": Swahili traders (people from coast of Kenya and Tanzania) made it inland as far as Uganda by the 1830's and Kiswahili developed as the primary inter-tribe language of communication for the whole region….thus, while not indigenous to Wakanda, in their "history", they adopted it for ease of communication with their neighbors. And all Wakandans grow up learning a bunch of languages and so speak their mother tongue along with Kiswahili and English and French and whatever other local languages they pick up. (See-that takes care of both the use of English and Kiswahili here.) ;)

P.S. building an imaginary real country is much harder than working with a real country…or an imaginary country.

Translations: (forgive me and Google if they are wrong!)

Sawa: ok

Paka enda: cat go away.

Hakuna, paka. Tosha: Nothing, cat. Enough.

Haiwezekani: It shouldn't be possible

Sijui: I don't know.

Indio: yes

Hapana: no

Bwana, shika: sir, take it.