Long ago, Anansi was tired from dragging the Mighty Warrior King of the Crimson Savannah to the roots of the Cotton-Wood that his mother, the Luminary Nyame, called home. The Luminary Aziza, Obea, was waiting for him at the roots of the Cotton-Wood, and she was delighted at the sight of the Warrior King of the onini pythons who inhabit the Crimson Savannah on the Disc of Gu.
“I am surprised,” Obea said, hovering over the long, stiff body of the python. “I recognize Onin, very powerful on the Disc of Gu. Well done!”
“Well done?” Onin asked indignantly. “What do you mean well done? Get me out of this webbing! The spider man told me that he was bringing me here to free me! I demand to be free at once!”
“Oh, don’t you worry, Onin, Anansi has brought you to the right place. I will take care of you. Run along, Anansi, you have other trials to complete.”
And with that, Anansi was walking away from the curses of the Warrior King and through a portal to the Disc of his father, the Vodun Lêgba.
The spotted leopards of Lêgba’s Disc are abundant and occupy the cities surrounding his castle that is built into the pillar that supports the Lofted Disc. They are notorious shapeshifters, though most can only manage their leopard form, a humanoid form that is practically hairless and walks upright on two legs with opposable thumbs, or a mix of both those forms. Spotted Leopards can hold any of their shapes for as long as they like. The black leopards of Lêgba’s disc are able to take any shape they choose, and the more powerful they are, the longer they can hold the shape. The Osebo Leopards have ruled the city of Twi for so long that it is assumed that the city gave birth to them. All of the Osebo Leopards born in Twi are black, but there are spotted inhabitants of the city as well.
Anansi dreaded going to Twi, but he knew that Obea was aware of the Osebo Leopards and she would probably turn her nose up at any other kin if he brought them to her, so he went despite his apprehensions.
Anansi isn’t fond of shapeshifters and his previous experience in Twi sealed that fate for him. There was a time in the past when an osebo leopard was going around the Disc with Anansi’s body, and the duplicate was very convincing. The osebo was trying to use Anansi’s reputation as the son of Lêgba to gather luxuries after he was banished from Twi, but Anansi tracked him down. Before he could executive him, which Anansi felt was his right because he had ruined his reputation with so many of the dwellers of the Disc he had encountered with his false face, Anansi and the osebo were whisked away to Twi where the elders there said the impersonator was to face justice. Anansi had to sit through an entire trial and in the end the osebo was executed, but Anansi was extremely angry that he had been robbed of taking his revenge with his own hands, and he swore that he would stay very far away from shapeshifters.
But soon he was walking through the city that was honestly very nice with sleek glass buildings for homes and businesses, with impressive parks of glass scattered around the busy city. It was predominantly leopards in the city, but there were other dwellers of Lêgba’s Disc mingling as well. Anansi walked bleakly along a busy street, blending in with the crowd and obscuring his face lest he be recognized and the one he was going to find be alerted of his presence.
The strongest leopard that Anansi ever encountered was the judge who presided over the identity theft trial and Anansi knew that if he ever saw him again, the judge would likely turn into a giant black leopard and rip out his throat. Anansi had confronted the judge after the trial and he was confounded by Anansi’s anger considering the identity thief was executed at the conclusion of the trial, but Anansi expressed his dissatisfaction that he hadn’t been allowed to kill the thief himself and he let his anger get the best of him. Anani punched the judge and he shifted into his black leopard form, pounced on Anansi, and told him that he was only sparing his life because of who his father was and that if he ever saw him again, he would indeed rip Anansi’s throat out with his teeth and devour his ecstatic gland.
Maybe enough time had passed that the judge would not remember him? Anansi thought, but that wasn’t likely; Fonlanders are long lived and they have good memories. Or maybe it was the case that the judge was no longer the strongest leopard in Twi and the new one wasn’t nearly as tough. But, Fonlanders live a long time and that, too, wasn’t likely.
When he arrived at the structure where the trial had taken place, he was disheartened that it looked just as he remembered and when he walked through the double doors of the entrance, his spirit sank when he saw the judge sitting high up on the bench in the back of the large room. The room was completely empty except the judge, and the slow moving Anansi. The doors of the room slammed shut behind him and he stood in the aisle directly before the judge’s high seat.
“So you have returned for your punishment, I see,” the judge said.
“I have,” Anansi said and he fell to his knees. “I have come to humble myself before you Kahn, oh mighty shapeshifter and arbiter of justice. The weight of my disrespect all that time ago still weighs heavy on me and I have finally come to unburden myself. But I know that you are a leopard of high honor and your word is truth, like the language of the trees, so I know that I risk death to come here. If that is my fate, so be it.”
Kahn eyed Anansi from his high bench.
“What trickery is this?” Kahn asked, and he stood from his seat.
“No tricks, your honor, I am humbled and at your mercy. I ask only that you descend your high seat to mete out your justice here on this floor where I belong for my transgression. They are many, your honor, and not just against you. I have disgraced my own mother, the Luminary Nyame, the holder of the stories of the Fonlands, and my father, the Vodun Lêgba. I have evaded my comeuppance for long enough, the guilt weighs heavy and I am not even old but I am weary under regret and shame. End me, send me to the echoes of Kútmómɛ where I will be remembered as the caution against disrespect and arrogance, which will surely be of more value to the Mother-Father than I have ever been in my life.”
Anansi was laying it on very thick, but he knew his audience, and needed time to weave the portal web and to camouflage it perfectly with the carpet. Even though he had dreaded coming to the justice hall, he knew how he would snag the leopard before he even entered the building. For Kahn is as much a creature of habit as he is an osebo leopard; meaning he has kept the same routine for so long that even separated by the very long amount of time that Anansi first met Kahn, the judge still kept the same routine that Anansi had observed back then. Anansi knew that he would find the judge alone in the hall before the evening session of hearings began. Kahn lived in the hall and only left for very special occasions, which Anansi was sure to avoid when he arrived to the city Twi, and he knew that while he was inside the hall, Kahn only tread the black carpet that lined the floor of the hall and the floor around his high seat. The majority of the floor of the hall was polished stone, but the black carpet was extended from the floor of judge’s high seat in a neat pathway to the judge’s chambers behind the high seat, and along the middle aisle where Aanansi was prostrate and seemingly surrendering his life to an old Fonlander that he had insulted when he was younger.
“I will descend my high seat,” Kahn said as he took the stairs down to the floor and then walked the black carpet that was as impeccably clean and shiny as Kahn’s short coating of black fur. He wore a long black robe that made him stately and he seemed to glide along the carpet as he approached the pitiful looking Anansi and stopped at a distance. “I will descend my high seat, but I will not kill you Anansi. The way that you have humbled yourself before me, I would be a fool to punish you for being so wise now to the error of your youth, and I offer you forgiveness.”
“Can you come a little closer?” Anansi said, trying not to be obvious that he was staring at a spot in the carpet that was indistinguishable from the other carpet at first glance, but was a couple of steps shy of where Khan currently stood. “I would have you at least cast your shadow upon me so that I may be properly shamed before you. True shame can only take hold in darkness.” He said it sincerely enough that Kahn did not question the logic of it.
The Twi judge was about to say something else as he took a couple of steps forward, but on the third footfall, he disappeared into the floor and Anansi sighed with relief.
“That felt too easy,” Anansi said as he jumped through the portal that he closed behind him.
He floated down on a web parachute and he took his time floating to the roots of the Cotton-Wood that his mother called home. He knew that Kahn was entangled in his webbing as he passed through the portal and he would fall like a neat package at the roots for Obea to find.
“Wait,” Anansi thought out loud to himself. “I wrapped him up, but did he have a parachute?” He thought for a moment, then cut the strings of his parachute to fall more quickly and he eased his descent by shooting webs at the tree and swinging until he landed close to the spot where Nyame was flowing over the mangled body of Kahn.
“I didn’t give him a parachute,” Anansi said to Obea.
“I see,” she said with a look of surprise on her face. “Kind of cruel, but whatever it takes, right?”
“Did I kill him?” Anansi asked.
“He fell a really long way, you could have woven the exit of the portal closer to the surface of the roots, or did you drop him from high up on Lêgba’s Disc?”
“No, he was on the floor, I messed up. I was weaving it while I was pretending to be repentant, which was harder than weaving the web, let me tell you. Kahn is not a nice Fonlander. He didn’t deserve this though. Can you heal him?”
“He’ll be fine. That’s the benefit of getting strong ones. He can heal from this himself pretty quickly.”
“And I’ve no desire to be here when he wakes up. I am off to the caves.”
PRL Serials 