A Labyrinthine Affair: The World of Taboo

A Newly Made Man

The ship docked near Erith, on the river Thames. A good distance inland from the North Sea. But still close enough to allow the Captain an easy maneuver regardless of the tides.

Moving slowly west, amidst the sloshy-slurpy sounds of the rowman's oar, was a dinghy, big enough for three adults. This one held two. The oarman, grizzled and bent, tirelessly swinging his arms in a circular motion, propelling the small boat towards the city. And He. Tall, erect, robed in a leather cover with accompanying hood.

Hazel eyes piercing the fog, focused on his destination. He held a kerosene lamp in his right hand and its fuzzy glow illuminated their way just for a few feet. This was his country of birth. The land from which he'd emanated. And yet he was returning a foreigner, skin marked with tribal tattoos, a strange tongue pulsing from his lips and a mind cracked open by spirits far beyond the bounds of Christianity.

As a boy, he'd heard voices. Those of the people around him and those of the creatures in nature. The people had called out to him, lamenting their stations in life, eager to find solace and relief from pain and betrayal, hopeful for a future freedom. Oftentimes he'd hide away in the forests a ways from his home. Because there were too many voices and so much need and nothing he could do to quell anyone's unease.

The calls of the creatures was just as confusing albeit a tad more comfortable. Animals sang to him of journeys above the skies and beneath the water. They reached out to him, not in need, but as an invitation, to taste the juice of the berry, to pierce the heart of the calf, to sip the crispness of the waters in the lake and cry unto the Creator in a language beyond words. They offered up a most sensory paradise. A world that teased the senses, roused the blood, perforated the staid Victorian soul and released a boundless ferocity instead. He could hear them and feel them and smell them. However, their ways still pushed against his own understanding.

Once he landed in Africa however, supposed home of savagery and devil worshipping heretics, he found himself. Imperceptible to notice at first, due to entrenchment with the East India Company. But slowly divulged month after month and year after year as he shed the propriety of England and its pious ambitions and set off to drench himself in the secrets and wiles of the Dark Continent. Africa had welcomed him and enveloped him. Not gently, or smoothly. But with a rigour befitting a teenager ready for initiation. Africa had cut him, pierced him, mangled him, soothed him, seduced him and fashioned him. Now he was newly made.

James Keziah Delaney.

He was a mystic, a traveler, a trader.

And he was home. At last. In London.

London. The monstrous, sullen behemoth, lay in the distance. The buildings and streets groaned beneath weeping grey clouds, drenching every available surface and every nimble human within reach. The city, a marker for progress, desire and dignified destruction. Teeming with masses eager to improve their station. Greed, avarice, desperation, piety, position and all manner of wealth. They were hungry. Their need seeping from open pores like a wound; whose cavity sought sustenance from every inch of available air.

He admired and despised the city. It seemed an inescapable pit from which none of them could ever truly be free.

As a boy, he'd been bound like the rest of them. Seemingly awaiting his fate. Now, he knew that freedom was not only a choice. It was a way of life. One could never shackle a spirit unbowed. He walked among the living but dwelt somewhere between worlds. And his soul shifted about determined to show obedience to none but him and his purpose.

He no longer cared if there was a God. He maneuvered through this realm, beneath whatever cover a Creator allowed, assured that he, admixture of man and creature, would be allowed the right to roam and stir and remain. Until such time as Mami Wata saw fit to plunge him deep within her waves and transform him once more.

"'Ow far will ye need to be going before ye dock Sir?"

The rowman was frank and direct.

"Go as far as Woolwich. I can gather my steed and head into London from there."

James' voice, deeper and more threatening in maturity, echoed out into the hazy distance.

He focused forward on the city. His mind stirred around everything he would return to. An impetuously violent father, now lying cold in a coroner's keep. His family home, assuredly in a mangled state of disrepair and disarray. A bevy of salivating lawyers and speculators hovering over his father's estate. Dark carrion covetous for meat. And Zilpha. His sister. Half-sister technically. But more than that to him in truth.

SHE: his lifeblood, his muse, his love. Ten years separated and still he could feel the pulse of her heartbeat. It was a clear as the water splattering against the slats of the dingy boat. She, whose loneliness and sorrow had called to him across the great ocean, above the maddening cries of his father; carried on tempestuous currents of air. She who was most certainly married and caring for a family and home, but wept in the recesses of her soul to reunite with him once again and become whole. She, who believed that their love was reason for her to be punished, diminished. Not yet understanding that the world was big enough, wide enough and rich enough to allow for the breadth of their feelings and desires.

He knew that they all lay before him. That they would challenge and test him. That they would only deepen his resolve. His ears rose to the sound of a New World, for new men, fashioned from the ashes of the Old.

He was in no hurry to speed up whatever lay in wait. He would move through each moment, each event with a wily patience and meticulous calm. There was plenty of business to deal with and plenty of people to meet, challenge and eventually carry away.

The rowman found a flat patch of earth free of wooden docks against which to slow their dinghy. They bumped against the shore with a jolt.

James reached into his pockets, pulled out a solid gold coin and tossed it into the old man's lap.

"Thank ee sir. Thank ee very much! Indeed, this will carry me for another month or so!"

He didn't turn around.

He simply waved his left hand in acknowledgement of the gratitude and swiftly left, plunging his boots into soggy earth.

Half a miles walk and he could retrieve his steed and be about his business.

There were so many calling. So many to answer. And only one to whom he would truly return.